Quiet underdogs New Zealand have reached the 2019 Cricket World Cup final after beating India in a tense two-dayer. Phil Walker dissects proceedings.
This is the tournament that just won’t yield, where logic checked out weeks ago, and where New Zealand, not India, will amble into Lord’s on Sunday to face one of those imperial supremacists that habitually disdains them. It will be their second successive World Cup final appearance, and if it wasn’t entirely alien to the national characteristic to get buoyantly carried away, they would be fancying this one very much indeed.
They began this tournament with a string of wins, but against ‘lesser’ teams; the logic running that the big boys will sort them out come the business end. Then, while already basically assured of qualification, as they stuttered through those final games, the arguments emerged that, well, it really should have been Pakistan to duke it out in the last four.
Even when, under deathly skies against the most complete bowling attack in the tournament, Williamson and Taylor were fighting like mad to acquire a defendable target, the comm box sages were branding the approach “inexplicable”. It’s hard, if you’re any way attached to the New Zealand cricket team, not to feel somewhat patronised at every turn.
And so it begins again. They will likely start the power-play of deflections and effacements as soon as they’re next put in front of the world’s press. And when asked, they will cede the floor, as they have done through all their history. And by Sunday night, they could well be champions of the whole damn world.
