THE TRANS-TASMAN RIVALRY
Everyone knows the rivalry between the siblings in a family. Sometimes they show mutual respect, but most of the time they fight. The rivalry between Australia & New Zealand is the same. Be it the underarm ball incident or any other victory, both teams celebrate intensely. While the big brother Australia has kept his domination, the younger brother occasionally enjoys an upper hand. Let’s find out how long the rivalry has gone and grown over the years.
HISTORY
It was none other than England which introduced cricket to Australia and New Zealand under their colonial rule. History takes us back to 1878 when the Australian cricket team first visited New Zealand. Though much information about this tour is not available, New Zealand got introduced to international Cricket around this era. The game between New South Wales and New Zealand on 15th February 1894 at Lancaster Park is the first officially documented First-class match between the two nations. New Zealand lost the match by 160 runs. Two years later they found themselves on the winning side by beating the same side at the same venue by 142 runs. New Zealand kept playing against Australian state teams and Australian XIs for the first half of the 20th century until 1946. The rivalry began to develop since then.
Test Rivalry
The first official Test between the two nations was played at Wellington on March 29th, 1946. The test barely lasted two days. Batting first New Zealand managed to score 43 runs in the first innings followed by 54 runs in the second. Australia comfortably won the first test by an innings and 103 runs. But the frequency of test matches between these two cricket-playing nations increased after 1973-74. In the five series played between 1973-1984, Australia won three times and shared the trophy twice with New Zealand.
Trans - Tasman Trophy
The two nations witnessed the first Trans-Tasman trophy in the 1985-86 season. It became memorable because of the exceptional bowling from New Zealand pacer Richard Hadlee. He took 9 wickets for 52 runs to help New Zealand win the first test. The first six Trans Tasman Trophy series were dominated by New Zealand. They won three out of the six and shared it twice with the rivals.
But they failed to continue the early success in the Trans-Tasman Trophy. From 1993 to 2020, New Zealand and Australia played 12 Trans-Tasman trophy series. Australia won 10 out of these 12 and shared it twice to hold the trophy with them. In the 26 years long period, Australia got beaten only once. This clearly shows the dominance of Australia over New Zealand in the Test Cricket
Stats:
Trans Tasman Trophy (18): Australia (11), New Zealand (3), Draw (4).
Australia managed to keep the trophy to themselves thrice in the drawn outcome. (Australia 14*, New Zealand 4*)
Tests Played (60) - Australia (34), New Zealand (8), and Draw (18)
ODI Rivalry
Australia first faced New Zealand in the limited-format of cricket in 1974 at Dunedin. Batting first New Zealand put 194 runs on the board with the help of Captain Bevan Congdon’s 82 runs. Australia chased the target with 85 balls to spare with the help of Captain Greg Chappell’s 83 runs.
The Underarm Bowling Incident (1981)
In the third game of the best of five final of the World Series Cup, an incident took place on the ground which grabbed the attention from all over the world. With series tied 1-1, Australia set a target of 236 runs for New Zealand. New Zealand required 7 runs to win the match on the final delivery of the game. Aussie captain Greg Chappell instructed his brother Trevor Chappell to bowl an underarm delivery to prevent New Zealand from tieing the game. Even the prime ministers from both countries criticized the incident. The International Cricket Council immediately banned the use of underarm bowling stating it is not within the spirit of the game.
The third brother, Greg Chappell who was in the commentary box while the ball was bowled, was heard calling, “ No, Greg, no, you can’t do that.”
Chappell-Hadlee Trophy
The Australian and New Zealand cricket board decided to name the ODI series between New Zealand and Australia as Chappell-Hadlee Trophy with a respect to the legendary cricketing families from both countries. Since 2004, both teams fought 12 times for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy. Australia won it 6 times compared to New Zealand who won it 4 times.
Stats:
Chappell-Hadlee Trophy (12): Australia (6), New Zealand (4), and Draw (2).
World Cup ODI matches (11): Australia (8), New Zealand (3).
ODIs Played (138): Australia (92), New Zealand (39), and No Result (7).
T20I Rivalry
Australia & New Zealand played their first T20I on 17th February 2005 at Auckland. Australia won the game by 44 runs. On the last ball of the match, Australian Legend Glenn McGrath recreated the infamous incident of underarm bowling in a light-hearted way. Umpire Billy Bowden showed him a mock red card causing laughter among the crowd and the players. Both teams met 9 times in the fastest form of cricket. The stats clearly show that the Kangaroos have outclassed the Kiwis. In the second T20I of Austalia’s tour of New Zealand, the hosts set a target of 215 with the help of Brendon McCullum’s 116 runs in 56 balls included 12 fours and 8 sixes. Chasing 215, the visitors scored 214 runs to tie the game. Cameron White scored 64 runs off 26 balls with the help of 5 fours and 5 sixes. In the Super over Australia scored 6 runs which New Zealand chased in 4 balls.
Stats:
T20I played (9): Australia (7), New Zealand (2*) (One by super over)
World Cup T20I (1): Australia (1)
Upcoming T20I series
Australia will be travelling to New Zealand to play 5 T20Is from 22nd February. Though the stats depict a dominating performance of Australia, they are going to enter the series after losing the last two series they played (one against England & one against India). On the other hand, New Zealand will be high on confidence winning the last two T20I series (One against West Indies and one against Pakistan).
New Zealand announced 13 men squad for the series with Wellington Firebirds star Finn Allen as a backup if Martin Guptil doesn’t recover from his injury. Guptil’s exclusion might put the hosts on the backfoot. Australia announced 19 men squad with 4 new faces including 19-year-old spinner Tanveer Sangha.
New Zealand Squad: Kane Williamson (captain), Hamish Bennett, Trent Boult, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Martin Guptill (pending fitness test), Kyle Jamieson, Jimmy Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Tim Seifert (wk), Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Finn Allen (on stand-by for Guptill)
Australia Squad: Aaron Finch (captain), Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Kane Richardson, Daniel Sams, Tanveer Sangha, D’Arcy Short, Marcus Stoinis, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa
We predict Australia to win the series.
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