New Zealand vs Zimbabwe, 2nd T20I at Hamilton, Feb 14 2012 - Ball by Ball Commentary

So there's plenty of cricket in the Land of the Long White Cloud over the next few days, do join me for all of it. This is Avi Singh signing off on behalf of Andrew Fernando, Venkat Raghav, Gopi Rangarajan, Siddarth Ravindran and Dustin Silgardo. Thanks for the mails tonight as well. See you tomorrow!

Zimbabwe may be heading out, but South Africa are already here. Tomorrow they play Canterbury at 5.00pm local time in a warm-up Twenty20 match at Christchurch's Hagley Oval to raise funds for the Christchurch earthquake appeal. Please do join me for that match which is the first of South Africa's tour. I will also be with you for the 1st Twenty20 International on Friday night in Wellington, as well as the curtain-raiser Twenty20 between the New Zealand Women and England Women beforehand.

That ends our coverage of Zimbabwe's tour of New Zealand, which saw the hosts win every game and most of them comfortably. Tonight, they were given a real fright though and Zimbabwe ensured they can head back home knowing that they can compete with the top eight sides in world cricket.

Man of the Match is James Franklin: "First hit in a couple of weeks so pleased to get a few out of the middle. The first few overs were hard work but we knew that if we got through that and waited, the runs would come. I expect a demotion though with Guppy coming back soon."

Brendon McCullum: "Zimbabwe batted well tonight, they put together partnerships which put us under pressure. Happy to get the win though and to wrap up the series, a good test before South Africa. Some of the guys will be disappointed but I'm confident this won't happen again. James Franklin batted well, made the most of his promotion. Kane is a class act, a very mature cricketer and showed he can adjust to all forms, his innings tonight was testament to his temperament. We've tried to be hard on ourselves and maintain that ruthless streak, so we will now wait and see if we can follow through with that against South Africa."

Brendan Taylor: "Tonight showed what we can do if we keep wickets in hand. We can hold our heads tonight. The better side won, but the boys will be fairly happy with the effort. Unfortunately it took this long [for the batting to fire], hopefully we can take a leaf from this and repeat it in the future. The firepower they have, we were always going to be under pressure."

A much improved effort tonight from the visitors though, who showed that they were capable of far more than what they had produced on the tour to date. The crowd certainly got their money's worth from both sides. Many of you surprised that Chigumbura didn't bowl the final over after his successful spell tonight, that will be one of the what-ifs Zimbabwe will ponder after they fought valianty before falling just short.

Zimbabwe pushed all the way but in the end New Zealand had just enough depth to sneak over the line. Jarvis' double-wicket penultimate over which removed the McCullum brothers looked to have swung the match Zimbabwe's way, but Williamson came in and struck every ball he faced with power and precision to ensure that Zimbabwe will go home winless.

Shingi Masakadza is entrusted with the crucial final over

Ben: "How important was Mills final over?" We shall see. Jarvis on a hat-trick

Andrew Ellis walks in on debut

Jarvis to bowl the penultimate over

Utseya replaces Price

Nathan McCullum joins his brother

James: "Whichever way this game goes, at least Zimbabwe have competed, which is a big step forward."