Australia defeated New Zealand by 7 wickets to lift the world cup crown for the fifth time in their history. However, the match failed to live up to its billing and Australia proved to be comfortable victors at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of a record crowd of about 93,013.New Zealand won the toss and chose to bat. But Brendon McCullum swung hard and missed at an incoming Mitchell Starc delivery which ended up rattling his off stump and left the scoreboard at 1-1. This was a huge blow to the Kiwis since their opening partnership had averaged 55 runs in the tournament before this game.Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill hung in to tick the scoreboard, albeit at a snail's pace. At the end of powerplay the scoreboard read 31-1.Guptill has a reputation for being a poor player of spin and the introduction of Maxwell did him no good as he was beaten by a rather innocuous delivery. Williamson soon followed suit, being caught and bowled by Johnson.Ross Taylor and Grant Elliot came to the rescue, and contributed more than hundred in their partnership. Elliot again looked pretty calm and confident with the bat, though he was saved by decision reviews on two occasions.Then, just as New Zealand took a batting power play in the 35th over, James Faulkner dismissed Taylor and then Anderson in the space of 3 deliveries. Clarke then brought Starc and Johnson back into the attack who got Ronchi and Vettori respectively. Elliot then decided to go big and was caught behind off Faulkner. And the tail was soon bundled up by the Aussies.Australia themselves didn't have the best of starts as Aaron Finch was gone for a duck, caught and bowled by Trent Boult. Warner, however, continued to play his risky shots while Smith looked comfortable on the pitch as he often does these days.Warner holed out a shot to Elliot with Aussies still 120 runs short, giving New Zealand some hope. But then came the skipper Michael Clarke who was playing his last ODI. Once he got through the difficult period of settling in, he took the attack to the Kiwis.By the time he got out, there was too much left for the New Zealanders to do. And soon it was over as Smith hit the winning boundary to send the Australian team and the crowd into wild celebrations.