SYDNEY: New Zealand cemented their status as genuine contenders for the World Cup with a dominating 98-run win over Sri Lanka in Saturday's opening match in Christchurch as Australia's Aaron Finch scored the 2015 tournament's first century.
Co-hosts New Zealand piled up 331 for six after losing the toss at a chilly Hagley Oval, with skipper Brendon McCullum (65) and Kane Williamson (57) laying the foundations for a big score before all-rounder Corey Anderson smashed 75 off just 46 balls at the finish.
The most astonishing feature of the innings, however, was that Sri Lanka spearhead Lasith Malinga, went wicketless in an expensive 10-over spell costing 84 runs.
Sri Lanka, the 1996 champions and runners-up in the last two World Cups, were well-placed at 124 for one but their innings fell away, with all-rounder Anderson taking two for 18.
New Zealand had beaten Sri Lanka 4-2 in a preceding home one-day international series and McCullum said: "It was a really good performance. We've waited such a long time for this match and you hope the form you had leading into it will stack up."
A disappointed Mathews said: "They probably scored 30 or 40 runs too many and then we needed someone in our top four to get a hundred. But we are not going to panic, we still have five group games left."
In Melbourne, Finch felt the love of his home crowd as the Victorian marked Valentine's Day with the first hundred of the tournament with a superb 135 against arch-rivals England.
Finch, dropped on nought by Chris Woakes off James Anderson, helped Australia off to a blistering start before Stuart Broad dragged England back into the match with two wickets in two balls to remove David Warner and Shane Watson.
But Finch, well-supported by George Bailey (55) in a fourth-wicket stand of 146, kept going in front of an estimated crowd of more than 90,000.
His 126-ball innings, featuring 12 fours and three sixes, ended when Finch, going for a needless single, was run out by England captain Eoin Morgan's direct hit from mid-off.
Bailey followed soon afterwards, playing on to Steven Finn to leave a see-saw contest in the balance.
Australia are in search of a fifth World Cup crown and England their first, having made the most recent of their three losing appearances in the final when the tournament was last staged in Australia and New Zealand in 1992.
They were overwhelming favourites to launch their 2015 campaign with a victory given they've beaten England in 13 of their last 15 home ODI matches.
However, defending champions India are the only team to have won the World Cup on their own turf in the tournament's 40-year history.
If Australia-England represents cricket's oldest international rivalry, India-Pakistan is its fiercest and the two Asian nations will open their World Cup against one another in Adelaide on Sunday in a game for which tickets sold out within 20 minutes.
Pakistan, who won their only World Cup in Australia in 1992, have endured a chaotic build-up with match-winning spinner Saeed Ajmal suspended because of a suspect action and eight players already fined for breaking a curfew.
South Africa, looking to end their World Cup heartache, boast some of the world's leading players, including captain AB de Villiers -- who, against the West Indies, recently smashed the fastest one-day international century, off just 31 balls.
West Indies won the first two World Cups in 1975 and 1979 and were runners-up in 1983 but since then, their best performance was a run to the semi-finals in 1996.
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