Ricky Ponting has a pet phrase to describe the final stage of the World Cup. He likes calling it the business-end of the tournament. But his team’s last league game against New Zealand, despite being meaningless in terms of the all-important last three games of the World Cup, can’t even be loosely termed as “business as usual” or “just another day at the office”. The Black Caps are no longer the modest and far from being pushy neighbours who would take things lying down. On the face of it, the game between a team that is on a 26 World Cup games winning streak, including the titles in the last two World Cups, and a team whose best ever performance is a semi-final outing, is expected to be lop-sided. But since New Zealand whitewashed Australia in the Chappell-Hadlee series earlier this year, the New Zealanders are being seen in a new light. Such has been the Aussie trauma that the stand-in captain for the losing side Michael Hussey had reportedly sent an SOS to an indisposed skipper Ricky Ponting to bail him out. Ponting is back and it remains to be seen if he can play the super hero and help his team get over the humiliation before the big games and potentially the prospect of facing their arch-rivals in the biggest one on April 28. In such a scenario, the game tomorrow will be a big test of the newly-improved Black Caps side. And, as is expected from a side trying to change its image, Stephen Fleming and his men go out of their way to explain that they aren’t really the also-rans that the world sees them. New Zealand’s star batsman Scott Styris hits the nail on the head when he talks about the famous Black Caps metamorphosis. “We never lift the foot off the pedal these days and that was one problem with us in the past,” he says. Even the relatively greenhorn in the side like off-spinner Jeetan Patel will remind you that this is a “well-knit unit that has started to believe that it can go all the way.” But it is the team psychologist, Gary Harmansson, who puts a finger on one thing that is different about New Zealand ‘07. “We are a sporting nation but, at the same time, we are also pretty good at being the underdogs. But the problem is we, at times, start looking beyond the task at hand. It’s like playing a Super Eights game but thinking about the semi-final and final. Now the focus is purely on the job and taking things ball by ball,” he says. Listening to skipper Fleming, one realises that the New Zealanders aren’t too focused on the mental aspect of facing Australia and neglecting the bread-and-butter skills. When asked what was the right attitude against the Aussies, the skipper gave the glimpse of a fresh approach. “We used to talk a lot about our approach during such games. We have gone from open abuse to not saying a word. Now we have come to realise that it boils down to skills. Too much talk about the behaviour takes you away from the skills you need to win,” he asserted. And it certainly will be the skills that will decide if the Black Caps bowlers can stop the Aussie batsmen — the one duel that will decide the game. The key to Aussie batting is their openers — Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist — who have the 50-run stands in all but one game of the eight played here so far. But they will be up against a bowling attack that has dismissed all but one side in the 210 range in their eight games. In a nutshell, the success of Shane Bond, the leading Aussie wicket-taking pacer, will decide the fortunes of Black Caps. But in case the Hayden-Gilchrist duo can get past Bond, it might be business as usual for Australia.
