We never stopped attacking - Ponting

The typically withering barrage from Brendon McCullum was not followed enough by his colleagues in Auckland

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An attacking mindset and strong performances from the bowling unit have been behind Australia’s success in the Chappell-Hadlee series, according to captain Ricky Ponting.

Australia retained the coveted one-day trophy thanks to a six-wicket win under the Duckworth-Lewis method in game four of the five-match series to take an unassailable 3-1 lead.

Nathan Hauritz, James Hopes, Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson ensured New Zealand were never able to capitalise on the flying start Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptill had given them in a 63-run opening stand.

As in the previous two matches Australia took wickets regularly to put the Black Caps’ rejigged line-up under pressure as they slumped from 120 for one to 238 all out in 44.1 overs.

After a 90-minute rain delay Australia were set a revised target of 200 from 34 overs which they reached with ease thanks largely to even half-centuries from Ponting and Cameron White, who finished unbeaten in Auckland.

“We’ve tried to keep attacking. We feel in these conditions on these wickets and these grounds being as quick as they are, if you don’t take wickets through those middle overs then you really are exposed at the end of the innings,” said Ponting.

“That’s been my philosophy through this series to try and keep attacking from the first ball to the 30-over mark and try and put them out of the game before we get to the end.

“That’s what we’ve been able to do. The bowlers have done a great job and as the series has gone on our fielding has got better as well.

“Once you put teams under the sort of pressure we had them under today it becomes pretty hard to get into the game.

“Our wicket-taking ability through the middle has been the difference in the game.”

"Not putting enough runs on the board" was the core problem at the heart of New Zealand's performance, said their skipper Daniel Vettori

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The introduction of Hauritz and Hopes into the attack saw the boundaries dry up and for 22 overs the Kiwis failed to find the rope and the wickets tumbled.

“If you hit your spots and you challenge the batsmen to play big shots all the time and take risks to hit boundaries then you have half a chance,” said Ponting.

“When Hauritz and Hopes came into the game it was a lot harder to score. It was harder to hit those boundaries and we restricted them and took their boundaries away and created chances which we took.”

New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori offered no excuses for another disappointing display which saw them fail to bat out the 50 overs for the second successive game.

“If you look at most of the dismissals they are relatively soft dismissals,” lamented Vettori. “They are just poor mistakes and whether it is the mental shift from the aggressiveness to the accumulation I’m not too sure.

“But they are mistakes that shouldn’t happen constantly and they have in these last three games.

“It was just about not putting enough runs on the board, losing wickets at crucial times and then putting ourselves under far too much pressure.

“When you do that against Australia you get yourself in trouble and that’s what happened today.”