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Stoinis a bolt from blue to shock Black Caps

In just his second ODI, unheralded allrounder Marcus Stoinis played one of the all-time great knocks to nearly steal the most improbable of victories

Marcus Stoinis' spectacular maiden ODI hundred was all the more remarkable considering no-one even remotely saw it coming.

Stoinis, a hard-hitting allrounder from Victoria who until today remained relatively unknown to the wider cricket world, took Australia from complete disaster to the brink of a ridiculously improbable win in the Chappell-Hadlee series opener with a perfectly-timed, beautifully composed 146 not out from 117 balls.

In the process, his 11 sixes broke Matthew Hayden's record for the most maximums in a trans-Tasman ODI innings, as Eden Park's small boundaries were cleared with clinical efficiency in one of the most stunning displays of power-hitting seen in an Australian shirt in recent times.

'He's actually not a bad bloke!'

It was only a fortnight ago that Stoinis returned to the Australia squad during the Pakistan ODI series for the injured Mitchell Marsh.

He didn't play a match against Pakistan and, after a lean summer with Victoria and the Melbourne Stars, as well as the Test selection of Hilton Cartwright, there was some surprise that he had even been picked in the first place.

His inclusion for the New Zealand tour was more a natural consequence of that initial installation, and with pre-match attention today focused squarely upon the late withdrawal of Matthew Wade and the resulting chain reaction of team shuffling, his presence on the team sheet flew under the radar.

Stoinis leads charge after chaotic morning

Stoinis' ODI debut came 16 months ago against England at Headingley, and was by any measure an inauspicious one: he made four runs and took 0-17 from four overs.

Second time around, half a world away from the cool climes of Leeds and in the middle of an Eden Park maelstrom, Stoinis made his second chance count.

And how.

All logic suggested that Australia's dramatic early collapse to 6-67 chasing 287 had ended the match as a contest, with nothing but the last rites to be read on anti-climactic afternoon in Auckland.

Of the 27,911 on hand, Stoinis could well have been alone in believing he could lead his side to one of the greatest comeback victories in ODI history.

Though even he wasn't sure that a win was truly on his mind. Initially at least, anyway.

Drama and tension in an Eden Park epic

"Personally I was thinking, 'OK you've got to give yourself a chance here. First things first, have a look around, get yourself moving'," he reflected.

"But then when Jimmy (Faulkner) came out, we spoke once he got to about 15 or so and we made a little plan there as to the way we'd go about it.

"When you come up with a plan everything seems a little bit more simple, even though it (the target) was a long way away.

"So it was all pretty thought out … pace myself and then target a certain bowler, and the end with the wind was a main thing for me."

At the close of the 41st over, Australia were 8-196 and had just lost Pat Cummins after an aggressive cameo of 36 from 28 balls.

Stoinis was 73 from 84, and clearly felt he had little option but to go for broke.

Maximum Marcus Stoinis smashes 11 sixes

As it happened, that was the halfway point of his innings in terms of runs scored, though the second 73 came from just 33 deliveries as he repeatedly went aerial – to devastating effect.

His hundred came and went in a particularly savage spate of four sixes and a four across eight balls, and as the Eden Park crowd generously stood and applauded, Stoinis set his sights on grander plans.

"The game changes so quickly after you’ve faced 100-odd balls," he said. "It does get easier.

"It got to a stage where the more wickets we lost, the more I thought it was my time to score the runs."

Tail-end pair Mitchell Starc (3) and Josh Hazlewood (0) proved to be little more than bystanders in the ninth and tenth wicket stands that combined for 84 runs and took Australia to within one more maximum of a tie.

And that, Stoinis revealed, was ultimately the plan before the run out of Hazlewood ended the carnage agonisingly short of its intended destination.

"The plan (with Hazlewood) was for me to face the first four, ideally five (balls of each over), if I was feeling on, and then get a single last ball," he said.

"But then at the end there, that plan was to try and hit a six and draw the game I'm pretty sure, and leave Joshy to win the game."

Williamson makes amends for run out blunder

And while the fairytale didn't quite unfold as intended, there's every reason to suggest that this innings could be the making of Marcus Stoinis – even, in fact, a recent historical comparison.

A tick under fourteen years ago, a similarly strapping allrounder named Andrew Symonds played his breakthrough innings, putting together a match-winning 143 not out against Pakistan in Australia's World Cup opener.

Symonds, whose selection in that squad was met with widespread condemnation, was transformed as a cricketer thereafter, going on to forge a stellar international career.

Like Stoinis today, he was 27, and about to deliver on his undeniable potential.