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Wake-up call: this is the loss Australia had to have

Wake-up calls are usually a good thing.

Sure they might come in the dead of night from a far-too-cheery receptionist, but you always make the flight.

Australia’s cricket team will be hoping to make the flight to Melbourne for March 29’s World Cup final.

If they do make it, Saturday’s match at the Eden Park cauldron will certainly be remembered as their wake-up call.

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Against a red-hot New Zealand in front of a partisan Auckland crowd, Australia batted terribly.

From 1-80 they collapsed to 9-106 as left-arm quick Trent Boult ripped through Australia’s lower order in stunning fashion.

“You’re worse than England,” the 40,000-strong crowd sung.

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A hostile Kiwi crowd greeted the Aussies at Eden Park. Photo: Getty

This Australian team are used to being booed and hissed and it is water off a duck’s back. Just ask David Warner.

But to say the rabble that is the English cricket team – somehow captained by an Irishman – are better than us, well, that is an insult.

Brad Haddin and Pat Cummins added 45 runs for the last wicket and proved the pitch was not full of demons.

Australia were nine wickets down in the 22nd over and only lasted 32.2. That is unforgivable in 50-over cricket. They batted as if 350 was the target, almost all the way down, and their decision-making was poor.

Captain Michael Clarke – himself a significant culprit – pulled no punches post-match.

“Our shot selection was very poor and I think our defence more than anything else was an area that was a lot poorer than we would have liked,” he said.

“I think sometimes in T20 cricket and one-day cricket you can get caught up working on the power side of your game.

“I don’t think we’ve had too many training sessions where we have worked on the start of our game and actually defending the brand new ball or the swinging ball.”

Pretty candid stuff, particularly about flaws in training.

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Mitchell Starc was the demolition man for Australia. Photo: Getty

An embarrassing defeat looked on the cards when Brendon McCullum tried to destroy Australia, just like he had done to England eight days earlier.

His 24-ball 50 – interrupted by a blow to the arm from a fierce Mitchell Johnson delivery – ended in the eighth over, though, and Australia almost took advantage.

Like Boult before him, another left-arm swing bowler rose to the occasion.

Mitchell Starc was outstanding in taking 6-28 and was close to bowling Australia to an incredible victory. I don’t think his body language will be the topic of too many discussions this week.

The Black Caps nearly outdid Australia with a collapse of their own, falling from 4-131 to 9-146, before Kane Williamson’s six gave them a thrilling one-wicket victory.

A loss is far from a disaster for Australia, though – particularly given the elongated format of this World Cup.

Heading into Saturday’s clash, Australia had won 12 of their past 13 completed one-day internationals. And if you add in their two unofficial warm-up games ahead of the World Cup, their past four victories had all been by 100 runs or more.

So in a format where almost everything has been done to ensure the game’s ‘Big Eight’ make the quarter-finals, the loss is just a reality check.

There’s also a lesson in victory for New Zealand. McCullum’s blitzkrieg to start small chases may work, but when he departs, maybe it’s time to slow things down. They batted just 23.1 overs in chasing 152 and would have been kicking themselves if they’d lost with so much time to spare.

For Australia, winning a World Cup is not all about batting first, posting huge scores and coasting to victories.

Gritty, hard-fought run-chases will be required along the way and if their batsmen learn anything from the Eden Park defeat, it is that they have to tough it out in stages.

That might mean five overs without a boundary, or packing away the expansive strokes for a while.

Australia have all the talent to win cricket’s showpiece event and, fortunately for them, their wake-up call has not come in the knockout stages.

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