March 10, 2003	Monday	Muharram 6, 1424

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JOHANNESBURG, March 9: Final-over flurries are what one-day cricket is all about. But Heath Streak and Sean Ervine took the art from the improbable to the virtually impossible on Saturday.

It had taken Zimbabwe 282 balls — 47 overs — to get to a sensible 190 for seven at Bloemfontein after recovering from an early collapse.

In the final absurd 18 deliveries, Streak and Ervine added 62, including three sixes and eight fours.

If Zimbabwe had managed to score at that rate throughout their innings, they would have totalled 1,033.

That might have been enough. Instead New Zealand, with Nathan Astle making a polished unbeaten century, paced their innings to perfection to win by six wickets with almost three overs to spare. No flurry was required.

Kiwi all-rounder Andre Adams was the man to suffer most at Zimbabwean hands on Friday but he had it coming to him.

New Zealand’s slow-medium tweaker Chris Harris, after a fine nine-over spell of one for 22, had disappeared for 23 more runs in the 48th over, Streak initiating the blood-letting with two muscular sixes to midwicket off the first three balls. Ervine finished the over with two fours.

Left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori then saw Streak, a man who would surely have developed into a world-class all rounder if he had not had to carry the Zimbabwean attack on his broad shoulders, produce two drives over and through the covers as 13 came off the 49th over.

That was to look like miserly bowling six balls later.

Adams is one of only three current batsmen in the world scoring at more than a run a ball in One-day Internationals, so perhaps he deserved to find himself on the wrong end of the next 26 runs for once.

His fast-medium swing bowing disappeared to all parts as Ervine fizzed to 31 off 14 balls by the close. Streak ended on 72 not out, just shy of his one-day best.

Adams, meanwhile, finished with perhaps the ugliest figures of the tournament to date — 5-0-54-1.

The 2003 World Cup has seen plenty of drama at the death but nothing quite late Friday.

Adams hit 15 off Chris Gayle’s final over at Port Elizabeth as New Zealand — as 37 came off the last three overs. Almost pedestrian. Adams finished with 35 runs off 24 balls. Against Canada at Benoni, he hit 36 off 20.

Few would have expected Darren Lehmann to be all but surpassed at the World Cup after he launched a world-record 28 — 4, 4, 4, 6, 4, 6 — off Rudi van Vuuren’s final over of the innings against Namibia.

That day in Potchefstroom, 46 came off the last three overs. A bagatelle.—Reuters