At last the finals have arrived and New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori has pulled a hamstring injury and is not playing in the finals at the Supersport Park in Centurion. He is replaced by Jeetan Patel. Brendon McCullum is leading the Kiwi’s. Australia have gone unchanged.

After winning toss, New Zealand opted to bat first and are suffering as Australia have been taking wickets steadily. The current skipper of Kiwi’s McCullum was dismissed with no run.

Redmond (26) and Guptill (40) managed to bring the score to 66 in the 19th over when they lost Redmond and within the next few overs Guptill was bowled by Hauritz and thus shaking the top batting order.

Neil Broom (37) and James Franklin (33) tried to make up but missed it.

With just 5 overs remaining, the Kiwis are struggling with just 2 more wickets.

Nathan Hauritz has taken 3 wickets and Brett Lee with 2. Siddle and Johnson have got 1 wicket each.

The unavailability of Vettori is very much seen as he has been good with both bat and ball through out the tournament.

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Flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi who guided Pakistan to glory in the ICC Twenty20 World Cup in England may soon receive an offer to play in Sheffield Shield for the Australian domestic side New South Wales.

The 29-year-old cricketer helped Pakistan win their first major title in 17 years by beating Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the final at Lord’s on Sunday.

Afridi put up an excellent all-round performance during the tournament, scoring 176 runs in seven matches which included two half-centuries and also scalped 11 wickets with an economy rate of 5.32.

If the deal materialises, Afridi would become one of the high-profile players to join an Australian side, after NSW’s selection of Kiwi Brendon McCullum for last season’s Big Bash final against Victoria, the report said.

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New Zealand beat Ireland by 83 runs in the first Super Eight match at Trent Bridge. In the other match, South Africa beat the host England by seven wickets.

Match 13: New Zealand Vs Ireland

The debutant of New Zealand team, Aaron Redmond played fantastic stroke by hitting 63 in his first international match. Guptill and Styris also contributed to their teams score to raise upto 199 in 20 overs. The comparatively weaker team Ireland managed to score 115 from 16.4 overs losing all the wickets. Andre Botha contributed 28 runs for Ireland. Nathan McCullum slammed 3-15 for Kiwis.

Redmond was declared man of the match.

Match 14: England Vs South Africa

England scored 111 from 20 overs while the South Africans scored 114 with 10 balls remaining. Owais Shah scored 38 for England which being the highest from their side. Jacques Kallis scored 57 not out, helped his team for an easy win. Wayne Parnell, Kallis and Merwe slammed 3, 2 and 2 wickets which helped to restrict England score.

Jacques Kallis was declared man of the match for his excellent batting and bowling figures.

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