Glenn McGrath for sure has a great sense of occasion. During the Twenty20 game a couple of days back, he was in a jovial mood and photographs of him trying to bowl an underarm delivery were flashed across many newspapers, signifying the unimportance of the occasion. But on Saturday when things got back to competitive cricket, the 'Pigeon' was as usual at his accurate best and played an pivotal role in helping Australia claim victory over the Black Caps by 10 runs in the first ODI at Wellington.

Twice during the Kiwi chase, it seemed like they were running away with the game. Firstly, the unpredictable Craig Mcmillan came in and struck a few big blows. Along with Hamish Marshall, Craig seemed to be taking New Zealand on the road to victory. But then McGrath put on his thinking cap and combined with Gilchrist to send back Mcmillan, stumped for a quickfire 37. It is not often that a fast bowler gets a batsman out stumped. But McGrath showed that it could be done. Then as the overs went by, Marshall began to look more and more threatening. With some innovative stroke-play, Marshall looked like thwarting the World Champions. But the talented youngster played one cheeky shot too many, only to be bowled by McGrath in the dying stages of the game. It was once again McGrath who made things happen with his hawk-like accuracy and sealed the game in the home team's favour.

Earlier, Australia won the toss and decided to take first strike on a slow, low wicket. This wasn't the ideal surface for Adam Gilchrist, as he found out in Kyle Mills' first over itself, hanging his bat outside off-stump to a delivery that did not come onto the bat, only managing to give a straightforward chance to Sinclair who accepted it gratefully. But this wasn't going to deter the Aussies as we all know. However, this was not the ideal pitch to play attacking strokes. Hayden and Ponting realised this early and batted with a lot of determination and resolve, curbing their attacking instincts. Both went on to register their half centuries in a rather subdued manner but build a good platform for the latter batsman to capitalise on.

It was Scott Styris who eventually managed to get the crucial breakthroughs. He put the Aussies on the back foot by claiming four wickets in no time. Hayden, trying to play an aggressive shot, was cleaned up while Ponting, usually strong with his flick off the wrists, couldn't manage to clear the boundary and ended up giving a simple catch to Vettori, who till then was having a nightmare of a game as Billy Bowden kept negating all his close appeals. The left-armer even had a heated conversation with the 'crooked finger' man.

At the other end, Styris was having no such problems. He sent back the in-form Damien Martyn with yet another of his typical slower ones. And when Hamish Marshall brilliantly caught Michael Clarke, diving forward off Styris, Australia had slumped to 5-158 from 1-140. Things became serious when Simon Katich, the 'unlucky man' of Australian cricket, too followed his colleagues back in the pavilion without scoring.

Andrew Symonds, running out of partners, then found an able ally in Brad Hogg. Symonds showed his maturity by taking Australia to a respectable total without taking any chances until the last four overs approached. In fact, he did not hit a single boundary till he reached the 30s. At the other end, Hogg kept rotating the strike. Once the two had seen to it that they didn't get bowled out before their allotted quota of 50 overs, Symonds was on the rampage. He took 13 and 17 respectively off Cairns' last two overs. The veteran all-rounder had his revenge when he bowled Symonds for 53, but the damage had already been done by then. Australia reached 236, a challenging score considering the nature of the wicket.
 

Like the Aussies, New Zealand too got off to a bad start. Skipper Stephen Fleming was sent back by Brett Lee very early in the innings. There was an element of doubt in Aleem Dar's verdict as Lee was bowling round the wicket. Matthew Sinclair's horror run against the Aussies continued as McGrath had him caught behind for no score. Astle and Styris tried doing the repair work but runs were very hard to come by on this difficult batting pitch. Trying to up the scoring rate, Styris eventually holed out in the deep off Symonds' bowling.
 

Things got even worse when a terrible mix-up between Astle and Cairns led to the latter being run-out. Cairns, promoted in the batting order to change the momentum of the game, went back disgusted without scoring. Meanwhile, Astle reached a painstaking half-century before he too departed for 65 deceived by a Hogg 'chinaman'. But Hamish Marshall kept New Zealand's hopes alive. Along with Mcmillan, the two seemed to be taking Kiwis closer to victory before McGrath clipped the Kiwi wings.