Now that India’s cricket bravado is over, the real champions will be at play at the MCG after a hard fought and scintillating show through the group stages and also the two knockout rounds that saw Bangladesh, Sri lanka, West Indies, Pakistan, South Africa and India being bundled out of the tournament. While New Zealand are in the big Sunday Final after a cracker of a game where they fought back the committed and win-obsessed South Africans, giving this World Cup its first real thriller match in 38 days, the Australians had an easy and sound run against the Indians at Sydney to literally sail through the semi-finals with Dhoni’s India being stymied by occasion and Australian brilliance.
On Sunday, however, it will be all about a neighbourly spat at the top stage of cricket with the Australians being the big brother in all kinds of ways — at home ground, considered way ahead of New Zealand in cricket, and in the game all guns blazing. The Kiwis have scripted their own groovy history in this World Cup under their aggressive captain Brendon McCullum — winning all the games on the trot and even snatching victory from the Aussies surviving the fire and fury of Mitchell Starc, come into the Final with a disadvantage as huge as the outfield at the MCG.
One, this would be the first time that they would be travelling outside their country in this World Cup so conditions would be an issue; two, the MCG is twice the size of any ground in New Zealand and the outfield just never ends, so the strategy to rope it to the boundary would not always work and may come with a high casualty rate; three, the kind of crowd support that egged on the Kiwis back home would not be there at the MCG, which would instead be bubbling with what Michael Clarke has called a “gold out”.
Head to head too, the Australians are a much more rounded team than the Kiwis who have only recently stepped out of the “underdogs” tag, what with McCullum practising and preaching in equal measure the tenets of being in constant attack gear. Under him, the Black Caps have, no doubt, learnt to look any opponent in the eye and script soirees of raw aggression both with the bat and ball. But, how much of this would be able to stand to the pressure of playing Australia in its backyard would be the final question paper that McCullum would be instructing his boys to answer correctly on the big afternoon.
On paper, New Zealand are one up on the Australians having defeated them in the group game but that was at home and the Aussies very nearly took away the game from them, showing their inconsistency to pacers like Starc; their batsman Martin Guptill has scored a scintillating double century in the quarter-final but his scoring rate against the Aussies is pretty average at 22; McCullum’s firebrand 50-plus against South Africa was another cameo but how long he may resist the temptation of hitting out at the likes of Glenn Maxwell and falling into the trap of a big boundary at MCG is pregnant with anticipation; Corey Anderson’s towering fight for the Final berth is already in folklore and their Boult & Southee chin music (though pace without swing rarely works for MCG) has given their arm strength a booster dose of confidence.
The Aussies, on the other hand, would have to fight complacency more than anything else, what with all their departments being in roaring form and the spring in the step back after their resounding victory against the Indians just three days back. Mitchell Johnson, their No 1 pacemaker has the ability to swing it in and out to deadly result, too, is back in action after scalping India’s star batsmen Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
Add to that, some 80,000 Aussies yelling down your head from the four-tier stands just about reaching the drone in the sky above them, and you would feel for the Kiwis. With all due respect to New Zealand and their new found muscle in cricket, this Final may just go the boring, ripple-less one-sided way — something that may kill the excitement but speaks volumes about the overpowering and sustained cricketing genius of the six-time champions Australia on to their seventh halo of the game.