Nagpur, Feb 25:Australia reached the target of 207 set by New Zealand comfortably with 16 overs to spare at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in a Group A encounter.

Having comprehensively defeated Kenya in their opening game in Chennai, the Black Caps were at the receiving end in Nagpur.

With nine runs coming off the first over of the Australian innings, the intentions were quite clear. Opener Shane Watson fired with the bat and the ball, scoring 62 runs and picking the important wicket of Martin Guptill. He was well supported by Brad Haddin who made 55 runs.

With the match safely in the pocket the rest of the top and middle-order chipped in valuable runs. Ricky Ponting, though, made only 12 runs before being sent back by Tim Southee.

Having put New Zealand in to bat after winning the toss, the Australian bowlers restricted the side to just 206 runs which was a below par score on the flat Jamtha track.

Although they played Brett Lee with caution, the New Zealand batsmen were cavalier while playing the likes of Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson. New Zealand were tottering at 63/7 in 17 overs and at that stage even a score of 200 looked unattainable.

However, Nathan McCullum (52 runs), along with Jamie How (22 runs), tried to rescue NZ from their precarious situation before How fell to Steven Smith. How asked for a review of the lbw but he was out without any room for doubt. Skipper Daniel Vettori, who came in with NZ having lost seven wickets for 121 runs, tried to rescue his team with a valuable knock of 44 runs.

But by then it was a little too late. Although the clouds had lifted over VCA it was still gloomy for the Black Caps.

Man-of-the-Match Mitchell Johnson ended with a four-for and Shaun Tait took three wickets while Brett Lee, S Smith and S Watson took a wicket each to wrap up the NZ innings in 45.1 overs.

New Zealand, who were table toppers before the match today courtesy their 7 plus run-rate against the minnows, have now slipped to fourth position.

However, like skipper Vettori said after the game, they have enough time to regroup before they play Zimbabwe in a must-win match.

Brief score: New Zealand206 all out in 45.1 overs (Nathan McCullum 52, Daniel Vettori 44, M Johnson 4/33, Shaun Tait 3/35) lost to Australia 207/3 in 34 overs (Shane Watson 62, Brad Haddin 55, H Bennett 2/63) by 7 wickets