Wellington handed lesson by trans-Tasman visitors

New South Wales handed Wellington a cautionary, if exemplary, lesson a week from the start of their Shell Trophy campaign when they won a scheduled 50-over day-night match by seven wickets and within 25 overs at the WestpacTrust Stadium.

Wellington coach Vaughn Johnson described as inexcusable his team's collapse from 73-2 in the 15th over to be all out for 131 and hoped they could make good the subliminal damage to their confidence with earnest application over the next seven days. New South Wales trumped their total with only three wickets down and in 24.5 overs.

Johnson named a 12-man Trophy squad immediately after the match, saying at least two players had confirmed their places in that squad with their form in Wellington's two-day match against New South Wales on Tuesday and Wednesday. None had played their way out of selection contention with their form in the one-day which was made brief by the visitors' easy superiority.

But Johnson said he was disappointed his team had failed to compete more fully after and honest display in the two-day encounter. He refused to blame the quality of the stadium pitch, the slowness of which may have contributed to the match's three caught and bowleds and a series of catches in front of the wicket.

Johnson said Wellington had simply failed to rise to the occasion and he apologised to their supporters and to New South Wales for the insipid nature of their performance.

"I just think that tonight we haven't played very well," Johnson said. "We still have to try to go on from here into the Trophy series in a positive frame of mind. I feel very sorry for the public and for the team after that performance. I was disappointed that after being 73-2 after 15 overs we wound up getting bowled out for 131. That was inexcusable."

Matthew Bell, who has had a chance over the past three days to ease himself into his new role as Wellington's captain, said his team had learned a great deal from mere observation of the Australian side side Tuesday - had even put lessons quickly learned into action over the past three days.

Wellington had been impressed with the manner in which, even in the longer match, New South Wales had always been busy, concentated and industrious. New South Wales' batsmen, in keeping with the nature of all avaricious Australian batsmen, were always on the alert for the chance to turn a push into a single and a single into two.

Bell said Wellington had recognised the talent of their opponents to work the ball and to keep pressure on the field and they sought to make that quality part of their own game.

But Wellington were made to look a poor study with their batting performance today when their innings foundered in only 35 overs. But for Chris Nevin, who took the match to New South Wales at the top of the order and for Roger Twose who counted two sixes among his 29 runs, Wellington commited a sort of gentle, uncomplaining suicide.

Nevin, who scored 83 as the best of Wellington's batsmen in the two-day match, bolstered their innings today with 55 from 46 balls, an innings peppered with 11 boundaries and notable as a lucid expression of one-day methodology.

Afer the loss of Bell to the eighth ball of the day, Nevin took Wellington through 50 in the eighth over and reached his own half century in the 14th over when Wellington were 69-2. He put on 46 for the secondwicket with Stephen Mather whose 12 was Wellington's third-highest score.

Twose scored 29 from 44 balls in a brief stand with Nevin and later as a buffer of the innings' decline. But when Shawn Bradstreet removed Mather and Nevin during a seven over spell which allowed only 18 ruins, Wellington fell into ghastly disarray. Nevin was out in the 16th over with the total 85 and his and the next seven wickets fell, mostly at five and 10 run intervals, for the addition of 46 runs.

Ne South Wales' progress to victory would have been contemptuous if it were not simply businesslike. Opers Brett van Deinsen and Mark Higgs put on 63 for the first wicket in only eight overs and Higgs, in van Deinsen's absence, went on to make 59 from as many balls before being dismissed eight runs from victory. He was counted Man of the Match for his effort.

New South Wales passed 50 in six overs - two overs quicker than Wellington - and 100 in the 17th, three overs ahead of Wellington's rate. But they had wickets in hand and they reached their winning target from the fifth ball of the 25th over.

So complete was their victory that a match billed as a day-night encounter ended in bright sunshine and before the floodlights, switched on at the death, had any chance to become effective.