Okay then, India have not made it to the semi-finals of an ICC tournament for the first time since the 2012 T20 World Cup. A billion hopes and a few hundred million more prayers weren’t enough for Afghanistan last afternoon in Abu Dhabi. But look, once again, it is the men from the other side of the Tasman who find themselves in the knockouts at yet another ICC event.
New Zealand have now made the finals of the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, and the semi-finals of the 2016 and 2021 T20 World Cups. They missed out on the 2017 Champions Trophy in between, but went on to win the inaugural World Test Championship earlier this year.
In this T20 World Cup, Pakistan have excited and delighted, as they often do, and as if that weren’t enough, have been professional and dominant too. The England white-ball juggernaut continues to roll on. The Australians have bulldozed their way through, barring the mini-Ashes disaster of course.
But to repeat the cliché, New Zealand have slipped under the radar once more. This is no disrespect to their progress through a sort of sudden-death group where the margin of error against fellow big sides India and Pakistan was tiny (ask India).
It is just that they prefer to do it solidly more than spectacularly – more so after the end of the Brendon McCullum era - and here they are again vying for a major trophy, riding on the immense discipline of a clinical bowling unit.
They were held to just 134 by Pakistan in their tournament opener in Sharjah. But with only four specialist bowlers and Jimmy Neesham, they still had Pakistan on 5/87 before Asif Ali’s hitting snatched the game away. New Zealand ended up bowling a spinner at the death with the combination they had gone in with. That played its part in the game being lost, although that does not mean another over from a pacer would have successfully defended the low total.
Skipper Kane Williamson has sacrificed a batter since for the express pace of Adam Milne. And while Milne has taken only two wickets in four matches, he has conceded just 6.75 runs an over and importantly, his speeds and lengths have pushed batters back even on the slow UAE pitches.
“What we're trying to do is keep coming in bowling fast, use my change-ups, be aggressive. Use the short ball,” Milne said about his role after the win over Afghanistan sealed New Zealand’s semis spot.
The five-man attack plus Neesham has given Williamson much more flexibility. Against the Indians, Neesham wasn’t even required with the spinners Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi giving away just 32 in eight overs.
Against the Afghans, Neesham bowled his full quota of four overs including the last over of the innings; the spinners were given a combined four overs only as Santner proved to be expensive.
Afghanistan had been productive with the bat at the death in this tournament – the least they had scored in the last five overs was 51 against Namibia. New Zealand shut them out completely, though, taking four wickets and conceding just 33.
Williamson has the experience of Trent Boult and Tim Southee to rely on – they took a combined 5/41 in eight overs against Afghanistan – but New Zealand also have their calm captain marshalling them almost unobtrusively and making his knowledge of these conditions and oppositions count.
Be it taking a major chunk of the strike against Afghanistan’s main bowler Rashid Khan or making sure he was there right until the end of the chase, Williamson batted with the same self-restraint that often marks his outings in the Indian Premier League for Sunrisers Hyderabad.
He has to deal with a largely misfiring bunch of players at that franchise, and while he is left stranded on the burning deck at times, the experience has possibly made him an even sharper cricketer, assuming there remained any scope for betterment on that front.
What it has certainly done is added to his memory bank of how Asian conditions behave and how Asian teams play, bolstered further by two consecutive seasons of the IPL now in the UAE. That has showed in how New Zealand have sought to bowl against the three Asian sides they had to face in their group.
“Subcontinental teams, you're looking to bowl a little bit shorter. They're very good front-foot players. You're looking to push them back before you bring them forward like we did with the Afghanistan team,” Milne explained.
“Overall that was our plan to push them back a little bit and then we were able to sort of pitch it back up and attack the stumps and use the change-ups from there.”
Coming into this T20 World Cup, New Zealand had won just one out of seven T20Is in the UAE. As Boult had said earlier, these are really foreign conditions for them. They have won four of five now, and are also the most economical bowling side in the tournament so far. It must be an art to still be able to fly under the radar.
