New Zealand may have beaten Australia in Wellington but that didn’t stop Daniel Vettori from sticking the boot into his batsmen.

The Black Caps’ 51-run win in the final ODI was only a consolation victory as the series ended 3-2 in favour of the tourists.
And the Kiwi captain was in no doubt as to why the hosts had ultimately been humbled by their arch-rivals.

“I’ve been pretty impressed with the way we’ve bowled throughout the series,” said Vettori.

“I couldn’t really ask for too much more from the bowling and fielding side of things, but we’ve still got a lot of work with the bat.”

The all-rounder pointed out a decisive moment in the second match of the series, in Auckland, where they lost by 12 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method.

Had they won the Black Caps would have gone 2-0 up and looked good for the series victory.

But poor batting and the dubious Duckworth-Lewis, something even NASA scientists struggle to understand, proved their downfall.

And Vettori said: “That’s the game that’s really going to haunt us.”

Even thought they won yesterday Vettori once again hit out at the men at the top of the order. Only Scott Styris (55) made a half-century in New Zealand’s 241 for nine in 50 overs.

It took four wickets each from Shane Bond and Tim Southee, plus excellent contributions from Vettori (one for 39) and fellow spinner Nathan McCullum to bowl out the Australians for 190.

They did have some luck, however, with the dismissals of Ricky Ponting (nought) and Adam Voges (five). But Vettori did not believe 242 was a defendable total.

“Once again we put ourselves under a lot of pressure with the bat by losing wickets,” he said.

“But fortunately Daryl Tuffey (36), Nathan McCullum (17) and even Shane Bond (six) near the end gave us something to defend and the wicket did slow up and then became more difficult to bat on.”