When Sams arrived at the crease to join Stoinis at 6-113, the result looked a foregone conclusion. But the duo combined for a partnership of 92, the most ever in this format for the seventh wicket.<\/p>\n
In the final over, Australia needed 15 to win as Kane Williamson threw the ball to Jimmy Neesham for the first time in the match.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/twitter.com\/melindafarrell\/status\/1364793177362808835<\/a><\/p>\n It was a perfect start for him as Sams got under a full toss and was caught just in front of the rope by Glenn Phillips, the Sydney Thunder all-rounder departing for a blistering 41 off 15.<\/p>\n After two dot balls and a six, Stoinis was dismissed in similar fashion with Australia needing nine from the final delivery, a meaningless four on the last ball cutting the margin in half.<\/p>\n "What a wonderful afternoon of cricket," Brett Lee said on Fox Cricket's post-match coverage.<\/p>\n Mark Waugh agreed, saying "I've never seen so many sixes and fours hit in one game, just power hitting. Stoinis and Sams – that partnership. Australia were dead and buried."<\/p>\n Waugh said it was the 18th over from Trent Boult which won the game for the hosts.<\/p>\n "Trent bowled a beautiful over, which halted a bit of our momentum." Australian captain Aaron Finch said.<\/p>\n An incredible 97 (50) from Martin Guptill put the hosts on the front foot, and saw him named man of the match.<\/p>\n "It's nice to score a few runs, but more importantly get another win," he said post-match.<\/p>\n Skipper Kane Williamson (53 off 35) and Jimmy Neesham (45 off 16) provided valuable contributions.<\/p>\n The start of Neesham's innings was particularly unique, becoming just the second man after Virender Sehwag in 2009 to hit the first three balls of a T20 innings for six.<\/p>\n "We got back into a great position," Finch said.<\/p>\n "I thought that we didn't bowl too badly today, but [Guptill] played a brilliant innings.<\/p>\n "For them to go into the back-end of the innings one down gave the license for Jimmy Neesham and those guys to play with unbelievable freedom."<\/p>\n New Zealand now lead the five-match series 2-0.<\/p>\n Williamson praised the "incredible" work of the Aussie chasers, but said his side deserved the win.<\/p>\n "It was a great game of cricket, fantastic atmosphere … It was great to get the result."<\/p>\n The Australian innings started brightly, before a stunning Mitchell Santner over yielded three wickets in four balls.<\/p>\n He got Sixers young gun Josh Philippe for a well-taken 47 (32), then after a single had Ashton Agar hole out in the deep for a golden duck and Mitch Marsh nicking one to keeper Tim Seifert on the following ball, and his last of the day.<\/p>\n He finished with 4-41 from four overs – but sadly, was left on a hat-trick with no chance to complete it.<\/p>\n Australia must win each remaining match to take the series.<\/p>\n "They're 2-0 down but it's not all doom and gloom; they can fight back," Waugh said.<\/p>\n "I thought Australia played well today. I thought their bowling was better … They did well to keep New Zealand to 219 because at one stage it looked like 240 on the board."<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Late fireworks from Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams weren't enough for Australia to complete the fifth-biggest chase in the history of T20 internationals, New Zealand […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38468,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38466\/revisions\/38468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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