Date-stamped : 09 Dec94 - 10:27
WSC 1994/95: Australia v Zimbabwe
Hobart, 8 December 1994

Australia contrived to give Stuart Law a  decent  run  and  three
other  players  an effective rest at Hobart`s Bellerive Oval yes-
terday, and still defeated Zimbabwe by so much that it could sign
off with two overs of David Boon`s ingenuous spin.

Craig McDermott did not play, captain/opener Mark Taylor did  not
bat, and Shane Warne did not bowl until Zimbabwe were 5-87 in re-
ply to Australia`s 3-254  and  already  morally  thrashed.   They
succumbed   finally   by   84 runs, the  one-day equivalent of an
innings defeat.

Law, in his third one-day international, was promoted from  No  6
to   open  in place of Taylor, just so he could get a hit.  Jump-
ing at the chance, he  stroked  the  most  effortless  of  centu-
ries,  reached  with an imperious pull over the square leg fence.
He  proceeded  to 110 from 135 balls, but complained later he had
neither timed nor placed the ball as well as he would have liked,
against an  attack  he  said  was  ``steady, but   had    nothing
super-dangerous.``

Taylor has always said the one-day batting order would  be  fluid
under his captaincy, but even he might not have imagined the kind
of versatility that would do him out of a job for the day,  at  a
time  when  he is hitting the ball as crisply as any other player
in the team.

David Boon obliged his 7,472 compatriots with all but a  century,
hitting  four  when  he  needed  six  from  the final ball. Boon,
thought to be hopelessly off his game a week ago, remained 98 not
out  to  add  to  his 64 not out in Sydney on Tuesday. He shared,
with Law, a partnership of 159 in 109 minutes for the third wick-
et that denied Taylor, listed at No 7, a bat.

The burning questions for Australia now are about Law and  order.
Where does he bat in Australia`s next match? Does he automatical-
ly make way for the eventual return of Steve Waugh,  and  if   he
does  not, who does? Mark Waugh? Do two consecutive failures con-
stitute a slump in the ultra-competitive environment  of  contem-
porary Australian cricket?

These puzzles will now occupy the minds of cricket followers much
more than the tournament itself for, on the evidence presented so
far, the competition within the Australian team - or teams  -  is
fiercer  by  far than the competition from the extraneous forces,
England and Zimbabwe. The fear is that the tournament will degen-
erate into a farce, albeit a popular and profitable one.

Zimbabwe were as undermanned as might be expected  of  a  country
that draws its team from a cricket-minded population about as big
as  Ballarat.  They  lacked  penetration  in their  bowling   and
firepower  in  their  batting  once the Flowers (captain Andy and
brother Grant) had  been  plucked, Alistair  Campbell  had   been
beaten  by Glenn McGrath`s late-swinging yorker and Dave Houghton
had swung so crudely at Tim May that it was if he did not see the
ball.

Australia turned the match into an exhibition, Mark Waugh  crown-
ing  the  performance  by running out Mark Dekker with a balletic
backhand flick on the run from gully.

Thanks :: Greg Baum, Sydney Morning Herald.
<END> Contributed by David.Mar (mar@physics.su.OZ.AU)