Matthew Hayden continued along his savagely merry ways notching up his third century of the World Cup as a hapless New Zealand attack lost all measure of the pitch and line and length. And as if that wasn't enough, there were enough supporting acts with Ponting (66), Clarke (49), Hussey (37) and finally Shane Watson (65* in 32b) to let Hayden get to 103. In fact, Watson's knock came much after Hayden had fallen, but his savagery despite a strike rate of over 200 seemed nothing compared to the audacity with which Hayden batted.
New Zealand was playing without Shane Bond and Jacob Oram and the weakened attack looked rather innocuous once it was firmly established that the pitch held no terrors for the batsmen. How the Aussies got it to terrorise New Zealand was another matter.
New Zealand's reply got off to a poor start. Stephen Fleming was deemed to have nicked a ball that had in fact hit is shoulder. But there wasn't much he could do when the finger was raised. Despite Peter Fulton (62) and Scott Styris' (27) best attempts, the wickets kept falling at a fair clip and before New Zealand hit the 100-run mark, half the team was gone. And there was no way back as the rest of the team folded up for a mere 44 runs. The final score for New Zealand read 133 and it handed them their worst ODI loss by 215 runs. Not ideal preparation for a semi-final in a few days.
Stephen Fleming has some worries now. He needs to get his bowlers fit and fast. He needs two matches out of them… the biggest ones of their lives. Australia meanwhile, are odds-on favourites now to go on and win an unprecedented third World Cup in a row; their fourth overall. They seem simply unstoppable.
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