At the start of any men’s ICC tournament, when the exercise of favourite-picking is undertaken, the names of the usual suspects crop up. Australia. India. South Africa. Even England. With New Zealand, there is always an asterisk. They are labelled as perennial dark horses who punch above their weight in global events.
Punch above their weight? What does it even mean? This is a side that won the ICC KnockOut Trophy (as the Champions Trophy was then known) in Nairobi in 2000. That conquered India, again, 21 years later in the final of the inaugural World Test Championship in Southampton. That reached successive 50-over World Cup finals in 2015 and 2019, when they finished runners-up despite not losing to England in either regulation play or the Super Over. That lost in the title round of the 2009 Champions Trophy and the 2021 World T20, tamed on both occasions by Big Brother Australia.
Perennial dark horses? Really?
Any other side that possesses such a sterling record but is generally regarded as an underdog would have bristled, taken great offence at their credentials being undermined. But New Zealand aren’t just any other side. They don’t waste time worrying about tags and perceptions, they don’t believe in clambering onto rooftops and screaming at the top of their lungs that they deserve greater respect and appreciation.
Instead, they go about their business with little fuss, concentrating on one step at a time, placing great faith in the credo that the route to the summit entails negotiating the climb rung by slippery rung, with unshakable trust in the process that they know will usually translate to the most acceptable outcome.
Pushovers? Never
Historically, New Zealand cricket hasn’t been about superstars. True, there have been legends who have lit up the world stage with their incandescence, with their magnificent gifts, with their genius. Top of that chart are the late Martin Crowe, the peerless Sir Richard Hadlee and, of a more recent vintage, Kane Williamson. Possibly Glenn Turner. But they have also had a slew of exceptional performers across eras who may not have possessed the same glamour quotient and who may not have attracted the same eyeballs as this illustrious quartet or players from other parts of the world, but who are second to none when it comes to impact. Which is why, despite the reasonably limited talent pool to choose from, New Zealand have never known to be pushovers. Never.
Cricket is not the No. 1 sport in the island nation nestled across the Tasman Sea from Australia. Not even the No. 2 sport. Until a decade or so back, when franchise leagues across the world took firm shape, the sport wasn’t a steady paying proposition. Very few could make a living out of playing cricket alone, yet it continued to attract thousands of protagonists because by nature, the Kiwis are outdoorsy and love sport, competitively or otherwise. Structured systems haven’t always been the norm for obvious reasons, yet the weight of history is so compelling that anyone who takes to sport, any sport, doesn’t do so for a lark.
Australia have been one of the great motivational factors for New Zealand, who don’t particularly relish being regarded as Little Brothers. Like every sibling rivalry, there is an added edge to this one – maybe not as volatile as India vs Pakistan, but nevertheless a needle, the urge to show the Australians that they can’t be taken lightly. That needle, that urge, doesn’t manifest itself in nastiness or churlish behaviour. Instead, it sparks an inner steel, a determination to hold their own despite not enjoying the same resources or access to facilities that are so commonplace in Australia.
A series of spectacular role models have kept the Kiwi fire burning. For any sport to thrive, it is imperative that there are examples to follow, for inspirations to emulate. Both from a performance standpoint and from the view of conducting themselves with dignity and playing the sport in the true spirit, New Zealand have never been found wanting, which is why their players are among the most popular and well liked anywhere in the world.
Perhaps one of the primary reasons behind that is that they don’t take themselves seriously. Which is not to be confused with the fact that they don’t take their performances or contributions seriously. It’s just that they aren’t so caught up in themselves that they lose sight of the larger picture, helped by the fact that back home, not even a Williamson is considered a demi-God or elevated to a status that can sometimes contribute to the inflation of one’s ego.
It’s impossible to imagine a Sunil Gavaskar or a Kapil Dev, who were Sir Richard’s contemporaries, waltzing into a shopping mall in Mumbai or Delhi or anywhere in the country, really, and not being mobbed. Can Virat Kohli walk the streets in India like Williamson does in New Zealand and escape with just a curious glance and maybe an occasional request for a selfie? In New Zealand, more than in any other part of the world, they respect people’s space and privacy. That helps in so many different ways. It tells the celebrity superstars that they are no different from anyone else even though they might be in a high-stakes, high-pressure, high-profile environment. It also helps them stay humble and grounded, an inevitable consequence of being treated as an equal, not the first among equals.
Togetherness and unity in purpose
Where New Zealand truly steal a march over the rest is in ensuring that the sum of the parts is always, unfailingly, greater than the whole. Individual milestones are forever secondary to team requirements, and it is not a mantra that needs to be drilled into their heads because to them, that is second nature. Perhaps because they are so far away geographically from most of the rest of the world and perhaps because their population is only a little more than five million – wow, right? – there is a sense of togetherness and unity in purpose whose value can never be overstated. All these help when 11 contrasting individuals take the field, a Band of Brothers who give it their all for themselves and for the others – not in that order – and who troop away happy when they know that they have left nothing behind in the dressing-room, whether that translates into victory or not.
It’s easy to point out that there are no great expectations from the people of New Zealand, there is no unbearable pressure placed on them by the media, no earth-shaking repercussions if they don’t come up trumps even in rugby, where the All Blacks are more than a sporting team. They are an emotion, much like the cricket team is in India, and superstars like Jonah Lomu have enjoyed larger-than-life status but even at their most popular, when they sent fans into frenzied throes of ecstasy, they were still more insulated from pulls and pressures than Sachin Tendulkar was even at 16.
At the end of the day, any performer worth their salt answers to their own expectations of themselves. They understand that it’s all fine to be eulogised and hailed and celebrated – or pilloried and ridiculed and castigated – by the outside world, but it is to their conscience that they eventually answer. And while it might be true that the extraneous pressure on a New Zealand cricketer might not be as overbearing as, say, on an Indian, the internal fire that drives these artistes on is as fiercely bright in a Williamson as in a Rohit Sharma or a Kohli, in a Rachin Ravindra as much as in Shubman Gill.
Not for the first time in recent years, New Zealand are in the knockout stages of a global tournament. Standing between them and an all-win record in Group A of the Champions Trophy are India, New Zealand’s final league opponents in Dubai on Sunday. In the context of the tournament per se, the outcome of this game won’t count for a great deal because both teams are through to the semifinals and won’t, can’t, have preferred opponents in their respective first knockout games. New Zealand and India will both inevitably dip into their memory banks, with contrasting emotions; after all, just three and a half months back, the Kiwis tore the history books to shreds by subjecting India to their first 3-0 hammering ever in a home Test series, a slight Rohit and his boys are unlikely to forget in a hurry.
But both Mitchell Santner’s men – the left-arm spinner was a key driver of the 113-run victory in the second Test in Pune with 13 wickets in the game – and Rohit’s team know that this is a fresh day, a new format, and three and a half months is a long time in international sport. India, more than anyone else, will be aware of the sting in the New Zealand tail, having been at the receiving end of losses in several key world tournaments, including the two finals New Zealand have won, as well as in the semifinals of the 2019 World Cup in Manchester. They know that unlike some others, New Zealand won’t crib about the conditions, they won’t come armed with excuses, they will take every challenge as it comes and front up with confidence, certainty and unwavering focus. That’s what New Zealand cricket teams do. That’s what they have always done.
Punch above their weight, you said? Balderdash.
Published – February 28, 2025 12:50 am IST
