Australia vs New Zealand T20 World Cup 2022 Highlights: NZ thrash AUS by 89 runs

Aaron Finch(c), David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Matthew Wade(w), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood

Aaron Finch wins the toss, Australia to bowl first. Steve Smith has been left out. 

"It's not as quick as some of the other pitches we see generally in Australia. There has been a lot of rain around and it's been under covers. It feels damp. Might be two-paced," says Isa Guha in the pitch report.

West Indies are a truly paradoxical case. You can't think of an IPL, or any T20 league really, without the participation of any West Indies player and yet, they have not only have they not been able to stay high enough in the rankings to get to the Super 12 stage, they were not even able to make it to the Super 12 through the qualifiers either. While it is quite sad to think of a team that are pretty much the pioneers of batting in T20 cricket, the fact remains that the West Indies played some utterly horrendous cricket throughout the first stage. They deserved nothing more than disqualification and let us hope that this team can come back strong in the coming years. 

New Zealand are no easy team to win against and yet, somehow, the Kiwis have not been able to get a win against Australia since 2011. The last time they did defeat their rivals accross the Tasman sea, veteran fast bowler Trent Boult had made his debut. 

Or rather 'rain threat'. There are dark clouds hanging over the SCG but so far no showers at the stadium itself. Pretty heavy rains in the northern part of the city and its almost certain, for now at least, that the showers will make an appearance here and make a mess of this match. 

Australia won the toss and won the match. While that may be a bit of an oversimplification, the fact remains that toss was an incredibly important factor in the UAE and Australia, bowled first throughout that tournament. In the final, Kane Williamson's 85 off 48 balls helped New Zealand reach a score of 172/4. It was hardly a problem for Australia to chase it down, with half centuries from David Warner and Mitchell Marsh helping them seal their first T20 World Cup win. 

There were some utter thrillers in the first round with the teams like Namibia, Netherlands and Scotland giving full members a run for their money. Asia Cup winners Sri Lanka started with a shocker of a defeat to Namibia but they did eventually make it to the Super 12. The same can't be said about two-time champions West Indies, however, with a meek nine-wicket surrender to Ireland knocking them out.

England will be facing Afghanistan later in the second match of the day in Perth. All four teams are in Group 1 and tomorrow, the Group 2 teams will take the field with Ireland and Sri Lanka facing each other starting at 9.30am IST in Hobart. This is followed by a little match between India and Pakistan, if weather permits, in Melbourne at 1.30pm IST.

This is it! Almost a year of buildup, teams chopping and changing combinations, old careers ending, new careers blossoming. All seen as preparations for this very moment. The start of the T20 World Cup's Super 12 stage. The tournament has started already, remember, and if you were blisfully unaware of the first round of qualifiers that happened before this, you missed some proper humdingers. We will be talking about that and more as we buildup towards this opening game. Stay tuned!