Unstoppable Australia too good for hapless Zimbabwe by CricketArchive staff reporter

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Ground:	Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad
Scorecard:	Australia v Zimbabwe
Player:	SR Watson, BJ Haddin, MJ Clarke, B Lee, SW Tait, MG Johnson, AG Cremer, P Utseya
Event:	ICC World Cup 2010/11

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DateLine: 22nd February 2011

 

The minnows continued to suffer in World Cup 2011 as Australia continued their winning run the the World Cup edition uninterrupted.

 

Earlier Ricky Ponting won the toss and elected to bat first as the wicket looked a belter from the outside. But once the Zimbabwean bowling attack especially the spinners bowled things did not look rosy for the Australian batsmen. Normally aggressive Watson and Haddin never really looked settled in the middle as they literally crawled. The Zimbabwean spinners did an excellent job as they choked the batsmen do slow death.

 

Some relief for the Australian side was to be seen when Mpofu leaked 17 runs in the 14th over and it seemed that The Australian batsmen would free their arms but Utseya struck immediately as he won a leg before against Haddin (29, 66b, 3x4) via UDRS. Ricky Ponting upped the ante as he ran the singles hard to keep the scoreboard ticking. Watson soon opened up as he pulled a massive six over midwicket to signal his intentions. But Cremer cut short Watson's stay as he trapped the right-hander leg before again through UDRS. Watson made 79 of 92 balls with eight boundary hits and one massive six. Ponting (28, 36b) tested the arm of Mpofu and found himself short while White (22, 36b) never looked comfortable in his stay.

 

It was left to Michael Clarke to prop up the scoring with a quickfire 55 with cameos from Hussey and Smith lower down the order. The Australian side in their 50 overs ran up 262 for the loss of 6 wickets.

 

The Zimbabweans in reply were rattled by the pace trio of Tait, Lee and Johnson as once the pacers were off the Zimbabwean batting was reeling at 44 for 4 in 12.3 overs. At this moment the contest was as good as over and the Zimbabwean middle and lower order went through the motions as they folded up for 171 in 46.2 overs.