Australia v New Zealand: Cricket World Cup 2023 – live

12th over: Australia 133-0 (Warner 68 Head 62) Ferguson – one of the quickest bowlers in the game - is being ragdolled. Without any concern for his wicket Head drives him square for two, then bludgeons a four straight down the ground with a stroke that could almost be described as thuggish. Good fielding limits further damage.

“Maxwell in at first fall?” asks Peter Moller. I hope so, just for the look on Steve Smith’s face.

11th over: Australia 124-0 (Warner 66 Head 55) A rare win of sorts for New Zealand with Santner conceding just six runs and one boundary. A TV graphic then indicates Australia are course for 500+ at this run-rate.

10th over: Australia 118-0 (Warner 65 Head 50) Is this fun any more? I’m getting queasy now. Warner extends a telescopic bat to dab a Ferguson wide behind point for four, then he carts a 154kph length delivery disdainfully over midwicket like The Fast Show’s Competitive Dad.

This start has been like watching that clip of those Orcas tossing seals around in the shallows. As it unfolds you’re in awe of the skill of the monsters, but after a while you just want the torture to end.

9th over: Australia 108-0 (Warner 55 Head 50) Massive moment in the game now with Latham being forced to call on his form bowler, Mitch Santner, much earlier than he would prefer. It doesn’t work. Oh how it doesn’t work.

Warner sweeps fine for four before Head takes over, ignoring the extra flight out of the hand to send a straight drive into the upper deck. Then he hoicks to leg to bring up his 50 in just 25 balls – the fastest of the tournament so far. Good to see the South Australian easing his way back after injury.

8th over: Australia 93-0 (Warner 50 Head 40) David Warner brings up a 28-ball 50 with a single to the onside. The delivery beforehand he lap-pulled Trent Boult for six as calmly and finely as you like. The aggression, the timing, the range of strokes… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like this from an opening partnership before.

7th over: Australia 86-0 (Warner 43 Head 40) 19 from the over! Change of bowler, but no change of luck for New Zealand. Lockie Ferguson digs his first delivery into the pitch but Warner was waiting for it, getting under the ball and carving a six over cover point. Six more follow soon afterwards with Warner seeing the ball in slow motion, staying underneath the bounce and upper-cutting over third. Head joins in the fun, smearing Ferguson’s final delivery for four straight back down the ground. It only just cleared mid-off, but that was perhaps in the fielder’s benefit consider the force behind the stroke. This is fantasy batting.

6th over: Australia 67-0 (Warner 28, Head 36) Boult changes tack for his third over, looking to bowl leg-stump yorkers in a bid to replicate death-overs conditions against the Australian onslaught. He only lands a couple in the desired area, but gets away with the concession of just one boundary, Head muscling one through midwicket a la Lance Klusener. This has been brutal from the Aussies.

5th over: Australia 60-0 (Warner 26, Head 31) If you just switched on you could be forgiven for thinking this was a rain-shortened 5-over bash the way Australia are batting. New Zealand keep faith with Henry, but it’s hard to understand why. Head goes 4-4-6 to start the over, beginning with a thick edge from a full-blooded thrash with his eyes closed and teeth gritted, followed by a lofted drive over extra-cover, then a nonchalant whip over midwicket.

Matt Henry is 0/44 from just three overs. His career ODI economy rate is 5.16.

4th over: Australia 46-0 (Warner 26, Head 17) I’m not privy to New Zealand’s planning, but I am pretty sure neither Plan A nor B includes Trent Boult starting his over with a wide half-volley. But that’s what he dishes up, so David Warner throws his hands at it and cracks it through the covers for another boundary. Four balls later Warner casually deposits another white ball into the crowd over midwicket, picking the length out of Boult’s hand, keeping his lower body low and accelerating high into the shot, like Rory Fowler driving a golf ball. This is punishing stuff.

3rd over: Australia 36-0 (Warner 16, Head 17) Oh geez, Warner is in some kind of form. He welcomes Henry to the crease for his second over by dropping his front knee and carting a length delivery miles over midwicket. Two shots in a row, one from each opener, that are a real show of strength. But that’s just the beginning.

Henry, rattled, oversteps, and Head obliterates the free-hit towards the top of Mount Everest. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Henry overstepped delivering the free-hit! This time Head steps deep into his crease and pulls with brute force for another six! Australia with 21 runs from just two balls!

The bowler does well to end his misery without further calamity, but this is a catastrophic start from the Kiwis who will already be considering Plan B.

2nd over: Australia 14-0 (Warner 9, Head 5) If there is any movement on offer in the air or off the pitch, Trent Boult will surely locate it. But on the evidence of the left-armer’s opening over, there is none to be found. It takes Head only five deliveries to reach a similar conclusion, smashing the final ball of the over through the line and over long off for a four so dismissive it will make Tom Latham question his afternoon plans.

1st over: Australia 8-0 (Warner 8, Head 0) Henry starts well, bowling a couple of deliveries back of a length to Warner on a tight third-fourth stump line, but then he chucks in a rubbish wide half-volley that Warner gobbles like a hungry dog, before the Australian makes it two boundaries in the over with a shovel off his hip over the ring field and away to the midwicket fence. A very clear demonstration of the importance of line and length against a batter in this kind of form. Little indication this pitch is a win-toss bowl-first surface.

Travis Head is immediately in the action on his return to the side, and he heads out to the middle to join the in-form David Warner, who has back-to-back centuries. Warner on strike, Matt Henry has the ball. Here we go.

Anthem time in Dharamsala, confirming – if confirmation was needed – that Australia will play in yellow, New Zealand in black, and that Australia’s national anthem isn’t great, and New Zealand’s is.

If I was an international cricket coach I would just stick this on the change room projector about now.

Not only is Dharamsala absurdly beautiful, but playing conditions will also be pleasing on the eye to both XIs. Unlike the fierce heat, humidity, and smog further south, up in the Himalayan foothills it’s cool (with a top of 21C), dry, and perfect for athletic exertion.

The pitch has so-far proven one of the most favourable to swing and pace bowling, which means we could be in for a rare lower-scoring bowler-dominated clash, considering the talent on display in both attacks. In all five matches here, including today, the team winning the toss has elected to bowl.

As expected, Travis Head is back in the Australian XI, but unexpectedly it is at the expense of Cameron Green – not Marnus Labuschagne. The form of Glenn Maxwell with the ball has surely altered selectors’ thinking, reducing the need for a pace-bowling allrounder. And now that Head is back, his part-time overs could paper over any cracks.

Head’s recall at the top of the order shuffles everyone else down a place, including Steve Smith, who gave fans of reading between the lines plenty to enjoy when he was asked about his demotion to No 4. “I’ll do whatever the team wants,” Smith said. “I’ve got a pretty good record at three, so I was a bit shocked in a way, but I’ll do what I need to for the team.”

Australia: 1 David Warner, 2 Travis Head, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Steve Smith, 5 Marnus Labuschagne 6 Josh Inglis (wk), 7 Glenn Maxwell, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Josh Hazlewood

The Black Caps make just one change with Jimmy Neesham replacing Mark Chapman, who has a minor calf niggle. Veterans Kane Williamson and Tim Southee continuing their rehabilitation from injuries on the sideline.

Mitchell Santner’s left-arm spin looms as a major factor. Australia’s middle order has struggled to build on promising starts, and we know how the Aussies don’t enjoy slower bowling, so the in-form Kiwi’s spell of ten between overs 10-40 will provide an intriguing battle within a battle. It is also the allrounder’s 100th ODI.

New Zealand: 1 Devon Conway, 2 Will Young, 3 Rachin Ravindra, 4 Tom Latham (capt & wk), 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Glenn Phillips, 7 Jimmy Neesham, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Lockie Ferguson, 11 Trent Boult

“We are going to bowl. I think it looks a decent surface,” says Kiwi skipper Tom Latham. “Obviously a slightly earlier start hopefully might give us some assistance with the new ball early on.”

Before we get to the toss, just some other Australian cricket news that slipped out during the week with the national governing body reporting a dent to its bank balance. Those figures reflect uncertain times for the game’s established orders as franchise cricket eats away at the power base of international boards and India’s status as the golden goose grows ever more problematic.

Hosting the Twenty20 World Cup last year has gone some way to balancing the books at Cricket Australia, after the organisation announced it recorded a $16.9m loss in 2022-23.

The governing body said the loss was driven by an “expected low point in the revenue cycle” given it was a non-Ashes year, although the game set a new attendance record last summer.

Geoff Lemon had the good fortune to witness Glenn Maxwell’s 40-ball century in the flesh a few days ago. Now we get to enjoy him rhapsodising over the innings the Victorian’s career had been leading inexorably towards.

He is playing in his third World Cup: 21 innings, 656 runs, a strike rate of 162.37. It is by far the fastest scoring in any World Cup career of more than four innings or 74 runs. The closest record with more runs is Brendon McCullum, godfather of the tonk, who went at a comparatively sedentary 120.84. Maxwell has produced a career unlike anybody else’s. This occasion was seeing it at its fullest, most riotous expression.

The Black Caps have been enjoying their time off. His Holiness presumably asking Kane Williamson how he stays so chill.

Hello everybody and welcome to live OBO coverage of match 27 of the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Australia v New Zealand will get under way in Dharamsala at 10.30am local time (4pm AEDT/6am BST).

A quick look at the table tells us the group phase has already satisfied its function of identifying the semi-finalists, and it has done so with two fifths of the tournament still to go. We will be squeezing every last drop of juice from the narrative lemon between now and November 15 to keep things interesting.

SAF 10pts from 6 games
IND 10 from 5
NZL 8 from 5
AUS 6 from 5
SRI 4 from 5
PAK 4 from 6
AFG 4 from 5
BAN 2 from 5
ENG 2 from 5
NED 2 from 5

Regarding today’s fixture, that’s probably leaning into the possibility one of this pair – most likely New Zealand – could be vulnerable to an improbable surge from either Sri Lanka or Pakistan. Following today’s encounter with an in-form Australia, the Kiwis have South Africa, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka to come, all of which carry a degree of risk. The Aussies might look at greater threat with only six points secured to this point, but they have yet to play Afghanistan, England, and Bangladesh.

I still don’t expect the top four will change between now and the semis, but that lemon isn’t going to squeeze itself.

Helping their cause today, New Zealand have enjoyed almost a week off since they lost to India, and they have spent it in one of the most picturesque corners of the globe. Australia by contrast are in the thick of a clump of matches, the latest of which proved a record-breaking one for Glenn Maxwell in Delhi.

After a poor start to the world cup Australia are coming to the boil nicely with key bowler Adam Zampa finding form, key allrounder Travis Head returning from injury, and a number of key batters enjoying time in the middle. There remain question marks overs the best XI, and there still isn’t that swagger you associate with the most formidable nation in world cup history, but Andrew McDonald won’t mind that if his troops keep logging the points.

That should do for now, so settle in while I steer you through the pregame and first innings, after which Rob Smyth will see you through to the end of play.

If you’d like to get in touch while I’m on, please fire all communication to jonathan.howcroft.casual@theguardian.com.