New Zealand v Australia: first T20 international – live!

10th over: New Zealand 67-3 (Conway 36, Phillips 14) That straight line for Agar continues to the left-hander, and Conway’s plan is to take it on with the sweep. It nearly comes undone when he gloves a ball up over the keeper but short fine leg can’t get around. But that doesn’t deter Conway, and he gets hold of the next two running to hit the rope at deep backward square.

9th over: New Zealand 55-3 (Conway 25, Phillips 13) Jhye Richardson is back, hitting a hard length outside off stump to the left-handed Conway, getting him off strike with a forced single. Phillips shuffles across to scythe a run to backward point. Likewise Conway, better timed, but Agar dives to save three runs. That brings Phillips back on strike, and he gets back in his crease and pulls a length ball for six! Up and under, it’s a 69-metre boundary and he’s cleared it. Nice.

8th over: New Zealand 46-3 (Conway 23, Phillips 6) Agar to bowl, and how’s this: left-arm orthodox, coming wide around the wicket to a left-handed batsman, looking to cut down his angles. So Conway plays a reverse sweep to backward point for four. Phillips has barely faced a ball. He’s 4 from 8 as Conway puts him on strike with a swept single, but manages to carve away two runs through backward point to add to his modest tally. Increased by 50 percent.

Message in from Michael Davidson. “Impressive of Adam Zampa to make it over to NZ for this game after finishing 8th in the Giant Slalom at the skiing world championships in Italy on Friday.”

7th over: New Zealand 38-3 (Conway 18, Phillips 3) Zampa back on, and bowling really nicely with the field back. Good bound into the bowling crease, good loop, and he’s rolling them out consistently on the line of the stumps, hitting a good length that makes the batsmen play cautiously, nudging four singles and nothing more.

6th over: New Zealand 34-3 (Conway 16, Phillips 1) Lovely shot from Conway in Kane Richardson’s first over, standing tall and punching off the back foot through point for four. Only a couple of singles otherwise from the over, and it’s a very quiet Powerplay for NZ as it comes to an end.

5th over: New Zealand 28-3 (Conway 11, Phillips 0) The Australians putting on the squeeze for the first six balls of this over, but Conway drags something back from the seventh! Richardson is too fast, nasty to deal with. Squeezes a ball through Conway’s defence and nearly back onto the stumps. Gives the batsman little to work with. But an earlier wide costs him when he has to bowl a seventh ball, and the left-handed Conway walks across to whip a leg-stump length ball over deep backward square. Sams is back there, but he’s a few metres off the rope. If he were back, he would have snared it, but in the end he can only leap despairingly as it sails over him for six.

4th over: New Zealand 19-3 (Conway 3) Fine bowling from Sams! He tightens up Williamson three balls in a row, a tight line from left-arm over. Williamson can’t force him away to the off, then Sams bangs in a sharp bouncer. A bit lucky not to be wided but it was just close enough to get the benefit of the doubt. Williamson bails out of a shot in any case. Four balls without scoring, so Williamson charges the next and pulls it just straight of midwicket, nearly caught. But wants more to finish the over and tries to pull one that isn’t short enough, hip height if that while angling across him. Instead of runs he gets a little top edge through to the keeper to end the over.

3rd over: New Zealand 15-2 (Williamson 8, Conway 3) Not full enough to Conway early, and the new batsman pushes a drive through cover for two runs, then works a single to midwicket. Williamson misses a pull and gets a leg bye. Five from the over, another good one.

What a delivery! Whoever wrote the $2.4million cheque for Jumping Jhye will be feeling good about themselves. Proper pace, fully pitched, and that ball tails in towards the right-hander from over the wicket, a yorker that beats the forward defensive push and nails off stump. Exciting.

2nd over: New Zealand 10-1 (Seifert 1, Williamson 7) A surprise as Adam Zampa comes on to bowl the second over. Not sure anyone was expecting that, Kane Richardson and Maxwell were wandering near the bowling crease, then Finch calls Zampa through. He gets away with a high full toss first ball, with Seifert just pushing it down the ground for one. A single to square leg and a couple of leg byes, and Zampa gets through the over cheaply.

1st over: New Zealand 6-1 (Seifert 0, Williamson 6) That’s the sort of poise that Williamson can bring. The early wicket falls, so the NZ skipper arrives, pulls a boundary, then drives two runs between point and backward. Suddenly the start doesn’t look quite so bad.

Gone in the first over! Guptill had a few question marks over him coming into this game, and they haven’t dissipated now. Watches two balls sail by outside the off stump from the left-arm angle of Sams, has a big drive at the third one, slices it towards backward point where the tall Agar is waiting, not having to dive.

Out come the teams. Good to see New Zealand back in the beige shirts. Carn the mighty beige.

A few lesser-known NZ players are getting a chance today as well. Jamieson’s fame has increased after also getting a big IPL bid, but he’s only played six white-ball games for his country alongside his six Tests. Extremely tall, extremely fast, and has taken piles of Test wickets already (36 so far) though fewer in the short forms.

Glenn Phillips suits up for the 18th time in this format, having made a few months ago against West Indies. Devon Conway will play match number seven. Otherwise the names are pretty familiar, with Martin Guptill recovering from a sore hammy to take his place at the top of the stack.

A few things to look for in the Australian line-up. Aaron Finch, to start with. He didn’t make a run in the IPL last year, didn’t make a run in the Big Bash, got cut by his IPL team and got passed over in the auction. This is the same man who has the two biggest scores ever made in T20 International cricket. He had a similar rut for Australia in 2018 and 2019 but came back to score a huge number of runs leading up to and during the 2019 World Cup. Australia need him to end this slump so there’s no doubt around him leading the team into the T20 World Cup later this year.

Philippe is an opener for the Sydney Sixers, so it’s a change for him batting first drop, especially if he comes in later in the innings with the field back. Stoinis is again being asked to be a hitter in the middle order despite his best T20 returns coming at the top. He currently holds the record for the most runs in a Big Bash season, made opening the batting for the Melbourne Stars. Marsh is more of a middle-order specialist.

Riley Meredith doesn’t get to play this first match alongside his fellow IPL auction winner J. Richardson, with the tricks of K. Richardson preferred to straight out pace. The other players sitting out today are D’Arcy Short, Ben McDermott, AJ Tye, Ashton Turner, Jason Behrendorff and Tanveer Sangha.

New Zealand
Martin Guptill
Tim Seifert +
Kane Williamson *
Devon Conway
Glenn Phillips
Jimmy Neesham
Mitchell Santner
Kyle Jamieson
Tim Southee
Ish Sodhi
Trent Boult

Australia
Aaron Finch *
Matthew Wade +
Josh Philippe
Glenn Maxwell
Marcus Stoinis
Mitchell Marsh
Daniel Sams
Ashton Agar
Jhye Richardson
Kane Richardson
Adam Zampa

Electing to chase first up is captain Aaron Finch. That’s the orthodoxy in T20 cricket, to get an idea of how the surface is playing and how to time an innings.

Some major points of interest: the recent IPL auction fates of a few of the less heralded Australian and NZ players. Also the fact that some of the biggest names are not playing in this series given they were picked for the now-abandoned Test tour of South Africa instead. I wrote about all of this in more detail.