Australia's fast bowlers breathed fire after Andrew Symonds flexed his muscle on the way to an eventful 54-run victory over New Zealand.

Shaun Tait, who was back after elbow surgery, raced through two wickets in his first over and Brett Lee's extreme speed was responsible for a couple of breakthroughs in his opening spell. There was no respite for the New Zealanders, who were also hit by Mitchell Johnson and Ashley Noffke, and they were all out for 132. It was not the performance they needed ahead of the Chappell-Hadlee Series on Friday.

New Zealand's reply started horribly with Lou Vincent slipping first ball before Brendon McCullum was also caught by Adam Gilchrist off Lee. Australia did not let them recover from the early losses and Tait, who was as frightening as Lee, added to the pressure.

Tait struck with his opening delivery when Jamie How edged an attempted hook and Gilchrist jumped high, got a deflection and dived back to get the catch with his left hand. Two balls later Ross Taylor played on and the game was over the moment Mathew Sinclair gave Gilchrist his fourth catch. Jacob Oram tried to fight, bashing six sixes in his 66 off 31 balls, but his team-mates couldn't stay with him.

Johnson earned his second wicket by removing Scott Styris and the debutant Noffke quickly made a mark by bowling Daniel Vettori with his fourth delivery. Noffke (3 for 18) followed up by taking Kyle Mills and ended the match by capturing Jeetan Patel. Picking a five-pronged pace attack on a bouncy pitch was the right decision and they were helped by a competitive total.

Symonds provided the strength with a half-century after somehow managing to take his time early in the innings. After unleashing a flurry of boundaries he brought up his half-century - it came with a huge six over mid-on off Patel - from only 26 balls and continued to an unbeaten 85 off 46. However, he re-hurt his ankle in the field to give Australia an injury concern for Friday.

Australia innings (20 overs maximum)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		AC Gilchrist	c Patel b Gillespie	1	2	5	0	0	20.00
		MJ Clarke	c Taylor b Vettori	33	43	26	3	1	126.92
		MEK Hussey	st McCullum b Patel	22	22	16	4	0	137.50
		A Symonds	not out	85	64	46	7	3	184.78
		AC Voges	c Taylor b Patel	26	25	20	3	0	130.00
		LA Pomersbach	c Taylor b Gillespie	15	16	7	1	1	214.28
		AA Noffke	run out (Patel/Gillespie)	0	1	0	0	0	-
		B Lee	not out	0	3	1	0	0	0.00
		Extras	(lb 2, w 1, nb 1)	4
		Total	(6 wickets; 20 overs; 85 mins)	186	(9.30 runs per over)

New Zealand innings (target: 187 runs from 20 overs)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		L Vincent	c Gilchrist b Lee	0	2	1	0	0	0.00
		BB McCullum	c Gilchrist b Lee	13	23	15	0	1	86.66
		JM How	c Gilchrist b Tait	4	34	18	0	0	22.22
		SB Styris	c Bracken b Johnson	18	34	15	4	0	120.00
		RL Taylor	b Tait	0	3	2	0	0	0.00
		MS Sinclair	c Gilchrist b Johnson	0	6	4	0	0	0.00
		JDP Oram	not out	66	56	31	5	6	212.90
		DL Vettori	b Noffke	3	9	4	0	0	75.00
		KD Mills	c Johnson b Noffke	4	8	8	1	0	50.00
		MR Gillespie	run out (Symonds)	4	14	6	0	0	66.66
		JS Patel	b Noffke	4	9	8	1	0	50.00
		Extras	(b 4, lb 5, w 6, nb 1)	16
		Total	(all out; 18.3 overs; 99 mins)	132	(7.13 runs per over)

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