The Holy Shit, We've Made It To The Cricket World Cup Final! Post

It's been a while between innings for The AB Enquirer as daily life gets in the way of blog writing. The meanderings are mostly posted on twitter these days anyway, but just occasionally it's nice to do something a bit longer.

I was originally planning a preview of the Cricket World Cup post but left it a bit late and now deep into the tournament and running terribly low on sleep due to the timings of the matches in the UK, a preview is a bit silly. As it is I predicted that Sth Africa, NZ, Australia and Pakistan would make the semis. I'd written India off due to their poor form in the 18 months leading up to the tournament and had Sth Africa down as favourites and us to meet them in the final. As it is SA got beaten twice in pool play so were obviously nowhere near as good or prepared as the world had thought.

ABdV was basically a one man team and if they dished out World Cups for being a nice bloke and trying really hard then he'd have one. As we live in reality though, you need an entire team to perform to win a tournament and they just didn't do enough. Had they won in the semi against us it would have been a travesty.

Great sporting behaviour between the teams though and you could see what it meant to both sets of players. Nice touch from Grant to lift up a distraught Steyn from the pitch. The hurt was visible for all to see on the Sth Africans faces and while in previous tournaments they've been their own worst enemies, this time they turned up and really played. Unfortunately for them they met a once-in-a-lifetime NZ team who are on fire.

Australia have been playing well and in Mitchell Starc they have a special bowler. All their batsmen look in decent touch too, with only Clarke as the slight weak link. I think he'd struggle to get in if he wasn't captain. The pool game against us in Auckland was the obvious highlight of the early games and I'd built myself up into a frenzy of excitement for it. Some background - the Aussies had avoided playing us for nigh on six years (which is a disgrace in itself, how that can happen when they're our nearest neighbours just shows how out of touch the ICC is with cricket). The Blackcaps were on a run of form which meant we'd beaten every major playing nation in an ODI series including England, Pakistan, and Sth Africa away. The Aussies had warmed up by slaughtering the useless poms and an Indian team on holiday.

Nervously anticipated by the entire world, I couldn't bear to look at it - staring weakly through clasped hands. Every ball (and there weren't many) was cheered and screamed at as we ran through them like a hot knife through butter. Destroyed. An annoying last wicket stand upset matters and meant we had to chase a few more runs than necessary. That would prove crucial. Our chase seemed to be going well, but then disaster as the entire middle order was blasted apart by Starc. Don't panic though, the Boy Wonder stepped up and smashed one over long on to win by one wicket. Epic boys own adventure type stuff from KW, who like the AB Enquirer is an Otumoetai College graduate. Conclude of that what you will.

So we're now in the Final against Australia. What should we expect?

The ockers will try to bully and intimidate us throughout. I'd be surprised if the fire alarms don't magically turn themselves on all night in our hotel preventing a decent night's sleep. I'd also be surprised if all of the boys are available to play after they're served some sort of 7-month old, sewage and plague infused, fish curry for tea.

Mitch didn't like Scott.

Surprisingly, they behaved themselves in Auckland but that's probably because they were terrified of the crowd going ass-bastard ballistic on them if they tried their sledging nonsense. However, we don't have 40,000 rabid NZ'ers to help out in Melbourne so expect the filth to be up to their old tricks. I imagine Johnson will be told to sling it in short and then run up and hurl abuse to our boys every ball.

It will be disgusting and we'll just have to deal with it. They know they're second best and just like in the old days under Chappell and Border when they know they're not good enough they resort to cheating and underhand tactics. Sunday will be the same as in those eras.

There's no single batsmen that we need to get out early from the Aussie team specifically. They're all good. Steve Smith has the ability to get a big score, while Finch and Warner can take the game away from you by scoring mega quickly. I think making sure Maxwell has almost no time at the crease will help the most. Like us the Aussies go in with five proper bowlers so there's no one single player to target.

The ladies love Marty

For us, well it's just a case of continuing on as we have. Marty G to entertain the ladies with his dashing stroke play and BMac to get us off to a good start by peppering the boundaries and smashing the run rate. The Boy Wonder to go deep and ton up with late Ross and Ronchi Donkey cameos of 50 each off about 20 balls. No-one else required (fingers crossed).

Lightning and Timmee, Timmee, Timmee, Timmee, Timmee, Timmee, Timmee...Southee to run through their top order, leaving Dan the Man to finish them off.

The MCG will favour the Aussies, not just because of home support but also as we haven't played there for so long. Nor have many of the boys played in Australian conditions for ages. It's unlikely to swing as much as it has in NZ (I think).

Let's rate the teams:
Bowlers
Starc - 10 v Boult - 10
Johnson - 8 v Southee - 9
Hazlewood - 8 v Henry - 8
Faulkner - 8 v Anderson - 7
Maxwell - 7 v Vettori - 9
Watson - 6 v Elliott - 5
TOTAL - 47 v 48

Batsmen
Warner - 8 v Guptill - 10
Finch - 8 v McCullum - 9
Smith - 9 v The Boy Wonder (#SteadyTheShip) - 8
Clarke - 8 v Taylor - 7
Watson - 7 v Elliott - 9
Faulkner - 7 v Anderson - 8
Haddin - 8 v Ronchi - 8
TOTAL - 55 v 59

Crowd
Australia - 10 v NZ - 2

TV Audience
Australia - 1 v NZ - 10

GRAND TOTAL - 113 v 119

There you go. Statistically based on the The AB Enquirer rating system, the BlackCaps will win. This does not of course allow for the cheating the Aussies will attempt.

It hurts to write Ross down as a 7 but he looks so shaky at the moment. He has been holding an end up though and preventing collapses so let's hope he can achieve that again.

Too excited for words. Let's do this BlackCaps. Go NEW ZEALAND. GO YOU GOOD THING. GO, GO, GO. BEAT THEM AND WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN!!!!!!!

By Monday we could be World Champions of both Rugby and Cricket. Oh my word...