Taking A Hit

Those who assume the Black Caps will go all the way to the 2019 World Cup final in July should scale back their expectations.

- Paul Thomas

When former broadcaster Murray Deaker ruled the sporting air waves, he made an interesting comparison between rugby and cricket talkback.

Discussions on cricket, he argued, were largely ill informed because many of the participants were drawn to the game during the golden era of the 1980s and therefore had an unrealistic notion of New Zealand’s place in the cricketing scheme of things. Lance Cairns belting six sixes at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1983 was “the most significant innings in our history because it introduced a whole lot of people to the game and they became overnight authorities who think that great team was the rule rather than the exception”.

History may have repeated in 2015 with the Black Caps’ World Cup run creating a second wave of fans with little cricketing background, whose expectations were set during those glorious few weeks. Their Lance Cairns moment was Grant Elliott at Eden Park hitting South African paceman Dale Steyn for six off the second to last ball, to propel the Black Caps into the final.

But recent evidence suggests those who take it for granted that the Blacks Caps will go all the way to the final of the 2019 World Cup, which gets under way in England and Wales on May 30, should scale back their expectations.