For the second day in succession, the World Cup took a break from upsets and assorted dramatics, and let the big boys shock and awe.

It is almost as if the teams at the top table in international cricket are competing in setting records — at St Lucia, New Zealand looked good for a few, but eventually had to settle for just one: the 331/7 it rattled up, after being inserted by Kenya skipper Steve Tikolo, is its highest score in World Cups, overtaking a previous high of 309 set all the way back in 1975, against East Africa.

For a while — a very brief while — the game could have gone either way. Lou Vincent’s poor run in the Cup continued, Odoyo getting him in the first over with a full length delivery that seamed late to find the outer edge through to Tikolo at second slip.

Stephen Fleming seemed a touch rusty at the start; at the other end, Tanmay Mishra shelled a stiff chance off Ross Taylor at midwicket � the first of four chances the Kenyans grassed on a day of woeful fielding.

Once the nerves settled, the Kiwis opened out in a display of unbridled power hitting. Fleming, Taylor, Craig McMillan and Scott Styris rattled up fifties, with McMillan being particularly brutal in a knock of 71 off 48 balls that contributed five of the 12 towering sixes the Kiwis added to the galloping World Cup tally.