Football
Reuters 17y

Cricket-Fleming's hard work steers New Zealand into semi-finals

By N.Ananthanarayanan

MOHALI, India, Oct 25 - New Zealand captain
Stephen Fleming put his innings of 80 in Wednesday's Champions
Trophy win over Pakistan down to hard work rather than form.

Fleming's effort and an 86 from Scott Styris, braving back
trouble, spurred the Kiwis to a 51-run victory and a place in
the semi-finals.

"I'm not batting as well as I can but I'm happy to get the
job done," said Fleming, who marked his record 194th game as
one-day captain with a 108-run fourth wicket stand with Styris.

"There are periods where you are in great form. To me, when
you are not batting that well and still grind out scores -- that
is the most important thing."

Styris did not field and Fleming said he was grappling with
back and hamstring trouble.

He praised strike bowler Shane Bond for grabbing three for
45 despite a hamstring niggle, including the key wickets of
Mohammad Yousuf (71) and all rounder Abdul Razzaq (6).

EXTRA PACE

"Shane also had a twinge, that is why we made him bowl the
rest of his overs instead of waiting till the death," Fleming
told reporters.

"What we saw was a guy with extra pace. Shane is also
extremely smart. He bowls different paced bouncers in the slog
overs, that is the kind of things he works on."

Pakistan could still make the semis if they beat South
Africa in the final Group B tie on Friday but coach Bob Woolmer
said his players had made too many errors against New Zealand.

"We lost wickets, just made too many mistakes with the bat,
with the ball and unfortunately in the field," he said.

"New Zealand have outperformed us, they have outplayed us."

"At times in the game today, we were looking like winning
it," he added.

"We bowled well for the first 30 overs. We fielded pretty
well for the first 30 overs, but we didn't react as we should
have done under pressure."

Pakistan brushed aside a crisis to beat Sri Lanka in their
opening game of the tournament after strike bowlers Shoaib
Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were sent home due to positive dope
tests but Woolmer thought South Africa would be tough to beat.

"They are coming off a terrific victory against Sri Lanka
and they looked in awesome form. It is going to be very tough,"
he said.

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