After all the whining about inconsistent conditions, Stephen Fleming won the toss and chose to bowl on a very overcast morning. There was a huge chance to extract revenge for the Faridabad disaster, where Nathan Bracken and Brad Williams had torn New Zealand apart.

Daryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills took four important wickets, but their consistency left a lot to be desired. Their length was highly erratic and on a pitch that begged for discipline, they could have easily run through the batting order. They bowled six short balls and five half-volleys, which got hit for 35 runs. Even in the other 75 balls that they bowled, there were many drifting down the leg when they should have been probing on off and middle. Compare this to the Faridabad match - where New Zealand were bundled out for 98 - when Bracken and Williams completely avoided the short ones and conceded only five runs when they erred with their length.

After 20 overs Australia were 102 for 4 and conditions were getting better for batting. Ricky Ponting and Michael Bevan were laying a strong foundation and one would have expected the typical Australian urgency for singles and twos in the middle overs. But both withdrew into their shell, and the runscoring was drastically curtailed. Between the 21st and the 40th overs there were only 74 runs scored, with 96 dot-balls. That effectively makes 16 maiden overs out of 25 and even Bevan did not want to force the issue. But like all champion teams, the Aussies compensated towards the end, when they hammered 66 off the last 10 overs and set New Zealand a competitive total - which turned out to be a matchwinning one.

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is on the staff of Wisden Cricinfo