This is where it all went wrong for Australia against New Zealand

Eleven years is a long time, but New Zealand made it all worth it as they thumped Australia in Australia for the first time since 2011. Australia came into the tournament as one of the contenders but were made to look an ordinary side by a resilient and superior kiwi team, to win by 89 runs. Devon Conway and Finn Allen took apart the Aussie attack with class.

Diving a little deeper into the game, while Allen and Conway were clinical with their shots, the Australian bowlers helped them along quite a bit as well. Length balls on off and overpitched deliveries were punished ruthlessly and the Aussies did very little as far as mixing up the pace is concerned. Well directed slow balls have been the new mantra in T20 cricket, but Australia failed to send enough of them down, even when there were clear signs (the first chance of a catch came off a slower delivery from Cummins, but Zampa dropped Finn Allen).

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New Zealand hit fifteen fours and eight sixes as they raced to 200. Of the total 23 boundaries, 18 came off length or over overpitched deliveries. On a day when Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood were struggling to find any swing, the overpitched deliveries were invitations to be clobbered and clobbered they were. Add this to the fact that Finn Allen was giving respect to hardly any deliveries, you would expect world class bowlers to quickly adapt to the situation. But that wasn’t to be the case today.