The second match of the ICC Cricket world cup concluded at Chennai with the most emphatic of victories possible for the Kiwis. If we thought yesterday's match was one sided...well we hadn't seen anything yet! Its actually ironic to think that many pundits were picking this match to perhaps be one of the first upsets of the world cup, it turned out to be anything but!
The Kenyan innings actually started rather promisingly despite the early loss of pinch hitter Obanda. Kenya in fact reached 40-1 before Hamish Bennett turned on a display of accurate pacy bowling. His dismissal of Kenya's best batsman Seren Waters set in motion an epic collapse from the Kenyans who lost the remainder of their wickets for just 29 runs to end up on a paltry total of 69 all out.
Southee and Bennett were the main destroyers for New Zealand, with Hamish Bennett in particular generating some serious pace as the Kiwis scythed through the Kenyan batting line up. In all fairness though, the Kiwi bowlers didnt have to do very much...they just needed to pitch the ball in or around the stumps and the Kenyans capitulated in front of them.
When it was the New Zealanders turn to bat, the predictable carnage followed...with Martin Guptill and McCullum smashing the Kenyans to all parts to overhaul the target in a mere 8 overs! The Kenyan bowling attack looked pretty modest in all honesty however, thinking about it they had absolutely nothing to bowl at and were therefore rather ripe for the picking.
For the kiwis though, this was a clear response to those who thought it would be them who would be targetted by the minnows for an upset. How New Zealand perform against the better teams is another question all together, but for now they have started their campaign with a thumping 10 wicket victory.
Osiris's Views
Not a whole lot to analyse here in all honesty, but the manner of New Zealands victory was a lot more crushing than expected. New Zealand were seen as one of the lower ranked established nations in a bad run of form, taking on Kenya one of the better associate nations. If there was going to be an upset then it would be in this game.
The fact that the exact opposite happened will now add a lot of fuel to the recent debate that has taken centre stage. The ICC has tabled a proposal to reduce the number of teams taking part in the 2015 world cup to just 10, in other words this would entail getting rid of all the associate nations. This proposal was met with some vociferous opposition, with influential voices arguing that this would terminally hamper the development of the associate nations.
I myself personally feel that the smaller nations should very much be a part of the competition, this is after all the World cup, why should we then close the doors to the world? However unfortunately extremely lopsided matches like the one that took place today in Chennai will lend credence to the ICC's proposal.
In any case thats still a whole four years away, for now the Kiwis will be feeling a lot brighter and the Kenyans will need to somehow pick themselves up from this drubbing. Thats all for now, please do check back later though for Isis's report on Sri Lanka and Canada's game at Hambantota, Isis will also be reporting tomorrow on what looks like an interesting game between defending champions Australia and Zimbabwe at Ahmedabad.
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