Kiwis need total team performance

What a match! The New Zealand Black Caps' played their hearts out to qualify for the World Cup semi-finals. It was desperate times for t...

What a match! The New Zealand Black Caps8217; played their hearts out to qualify for the World Cup semi-finals. It was desperate times for the Kiwis because they had to win. They needed to defeat a team that had played some very good cricket in recent weeks and they were able to lift their game when it mattered. They will need to keep focused and get their whole game together if they realistically think they can go all the way. It is now sudden death but on their day they can beat anyone. The Kiwis however, have yet to put in a consistent and complete total team performance during the tournament. They have now had wins over Bangladesh, Scotland, Australia and India. The Kiwis have lost to Pakistan and South Africa and will face one of them in the semi-final.

The Indian team, who knew they were out of the competition, only had pride to play for. They competed well in the match and never made it easy for the Kiwis. They fielded their strongest combination when they could have given other squad members a game togain valuable experience. They should be complimented on their approach, the way they responded to the challenge and how they played the game.

This was a very important match for three teams. New Zealand needed to win to go into the next stage of the competition. A loss would allow Zimbabwe and Australia to reach the last four. Now that New Zealand have defeated India, Australia need to beat the World Cup favourites, South Africa, and if that happens, Zimbabwe are eliminated. Zimbabwe will be hoping for a South African win to allow them to progress to the semi finals instead of Australia.

How many opportunities does a team need to qualify for the semi finals? New Zealand have had to do it the hard way during this World Cup. They knew when they played Scotland, they not only had to win the match, but they had to win it well, to eliminate the West Indies from the tournament. They scored the 122 runs in 21 overs to meet the target allowing them to have a better net run rate than the West Indies. Once NewZealand had qualified for the Super Six, they knew that two more wins would guarantee them a place in the last four. The match against Zimbabwe, abandoned due to bad weather, resulted in both teams gaining one point each. From New Zealand8217;s point of view one point was as good as a loss.

They were then badly beaten by the World Cup favourites, South Africa, which would have dented their confidence, yet they were still alive in the competition. An opportunity had been wasted, but there was still one more chance by defeating India who were already out of the competition.The New Zealanders had to be fully committed and lift their game to another level and put their bodies on the line. The Indian batting was again a delight to watch with Ajay Jadeja playing another knock with some wonderful power hitting but the New Zealand bowlers stuck to their task admirably, especially in the last ten overs.

The irony of the tournament is that India has scored five hundreds and the New Zealanders, none. No New Zealandbatsman has looked like scoring a hundred although Matthew Horne produced his best innings of the tournament with a timely and very valuable 74. The soldier8217; and backbone of the New Zealand innings was again Roger Twose. His experience in English conditions has proved to be very important and to be named Man of the Match, as he was against Australia, was just reward.

To restrict India to 251 was a satisfactory effort on the part of the bowlers. At one stage India were on target to score 270 or more. The New Zealanders would have felt that 252 to win was very achievable, provided some of the out of form batsmen could make some significant contributions. Nathan Astle is starting to look as though he is finding some timing and is hitting the ball much better but there is still some concern with the lack of runs scored by Craig McMillan and Stephen Fleming.

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New Zealand8217;s semi-final match will be a tough encounter either against South Africa or Pakistan who are both the form teams and predicted to make thefinal.

They have now reached four World Cup semi-finals and perhaps now the Kiwis need to believe more so that once a team reaches the semi-final it is anyone8217;s game. New Zealand will need a total team performance if they are to make a dream become a reality.