White Jacket Day: five crucial moments

Australia deserved to win today, but it would have been slightly more palatable to have seen the man who looks like Carson Kressley get out for 99, rather than win the game with a big six off Jeetan Patel.

New Zealand was far from disgraced, and both Mills and Bond were fantastic in the early overs of the Australian innings.

Their joint effort gave New Zealand a glimpse of what would have been an extraordinary win with a paltry 200 on the board, but the initiative was wrestled back in Australia's favour by a very patient, deliberate and at times painstaking partnership from Watson and White.

I thought there were five crucial moments in the match, as set out below. The italics indicates text from the online cricket utopia of Cricinfo. Do you agree?

Breaking news - Daniel Vettori has pulled a hamstring and will not play. He is being replaced by Jeetan Patel. Brendon McCullum will captain New Zealand.

While Australia named an unchanged line-up, New Zealand was deprived of its captain, best bowler, and a very pesky number six batsman. Vettori is a huge presence in the New Zealand team and without him in the XI our batting looked very brittle indeed.

Hauritz to Guptill, OUT, caught and bowled, straightforward delivery that, bowled full and flat outside off, Guptill pushed at it firmly and scooped an easy catch back to the bowler.

Guptill has started to make a habit of not only losing his wicket, but wrapping it up in a big box, tying a big pink ribbon around it and handing it over to the bowler well in advance of Christmas morning. This time he had been in for almost 90 minutes, had taken his time to get set, thumped away bad balls to the fence, and was starting to look very comfortable. Then he gently taps his 64^th ball faced back to Nathan Hauritz while Ian Chappell raves on about the inevitability of that happening to batsmen who are averse to staying inside their crease. Slightly ironic given the nature (and folly) of Redmond's dismissal a matter of minutes earlier. After a grinding effort to resurrect the New Zealand innings, we were back in the hole at 77/3 after 22.2 overs.

Watson to Broom, OUT, run out off an atrocious delivery, high full toss outside off, played it down to point, Franklin wanted a single but Broom hesitated, he was running back to his end and then turned back, was too late to respond to Franklin's call and Hussey at point returned a safe throw down to Watson who took off the bails to find Broom miles short.

Just as yet another resurrection beckoned, and I was tucking into my first crumpet of the morning (a cooked one), Neil Broom's head exploded. My initial laugh at the appalling ball that Watson bowled was well and truly erased a few moments later as the partnership disintegrated. Chappell was condescending and highly critical of Broom's batting early on against Brett Lee and the swinging ball, but it was a Flynn-like knock of grit and perseverance ended by what would have been a wide (and must have been perilously close to a no-ball). His 62-ball innings of 37 had laid the platform for a possible surge in the final overs - if we could have pinched 80 or so off the final 10 overs it could have become a very different game. But the run out returned New Zealand to its familiar rut - 159/6 with just 55 balls - and 7 balls of the powerplay - to come.

Franklin to White, 1 run, pitches outside leg and that one is nudged off the pads for one. Franklin to Watson, FOUR, poor line, well outside leg stump and Watson gets a faint tickle on that which sends the ball away for four to fine leg... Franklin to White, 2 runs, hops up and turns the ball off his hips for a couple

The 15^th over was where the cork of New Zealand pressure started to inch its way out of the bottle. Following two superb spells of bowling from Mills (7-2-9-1) and Bond (5-2-9-1), James Franklin joined the bowling fray. His first two balls were legside filth, the Australians picked him off for a very comfortable 8 runs and the signs were ominous.    

Butler to White, 1 run, dropped! White goes to pull a shorter ball and makes a meal of it, all wrong with the balance, and the ball flies up off the shoulder of the bat very, very high to the leg side, McCullum runs across to his left but fails to catch it.

Pakistan captain Younis (or is it Younus?) Khan would have been the viewer who most enjoyed this moment, as it was his spill at a similarly critical moment that helped New Zealand over the line and gave rise to speculation about match-fixing in the media.

The joy for Australian albino Cameron White must have been overwhelming. The cork that was squeaking its way out of the champagne bottle erupted. Indeed, as Butler was almost inevitably driven exquisitely down the ground for four next ball, the sighs of Kiwi cricket fans in the throes of preparing for their journeys to work filled lounge rooms across the country.

Had the catch been taken, the scrap might have been extended but, as early as 12:48am when Vettori was ruled out, the omens were not indicating a red-letter day for New Zealand. Instead it became a white-jacket day for Australia, prompting at least one outstanding cricket correspondent to issue the following on Twitter: "They look like 15 real estate agents in those f**ked up jackets."

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