Given the one-sided final at the MCG on Sunday, it is only right that Brendan McCullum and his men will delay any talk of the Black Caps campaign until after Australia has relished the experience of once again lifting the Cricket World Cup trophy.

That said, New Zealand under McCullum not only put on a show, they rekindled the nation’s love of the sport and indeed the world’s interest in the 50-over format of the game.

Like a number of New Zealanders, I enjoyed the spectacle but was far from convinced we had the capability to challenge Australia in the final. Whether New Zealand was the right team to be there will no doubt be debated, however, I was delighted they were but at the same time, presumed the task of winning was going to be a notch or two beyond them.

While I will more than likely be criticised for sharing a view, there are two reasons for doing so. The first is to discuss the ‘brand’ of cricket New Zealand is playing and the rationale behind it and the second is what they will need to do if they are serious about contesting the next final rather than leaving us with memories of a seasonal flush as opposed to an insight of things to come.

The Black Caps ‘brand’ of cricket

What McCullum and Hesson presumably mean when they talk about their ‘brand’ of cricket is the style of cricket they have chosen to play and thus the approach they have agreed to take in this format of the game.

In fairness a team’s approach isn’t a right or wrong thing per se so although McCullum could be criticised for staying the course at any cost, this approach has worked against the majority of attacks but was always going to be risky against the quality of the Australian pace bowlers.

The problem for New Zealand was they needed McCullum to put runs on the board to have any chance of competing rather than presuming the depth of batting behind him would see them through irrespective. If we believed the depth was there, the risk would be worthwhile however when it is clear it isn’t yet at that point, his time at the wicket was likely to be more important than the speed in which he scored runs (hindsight accepted).

A word the Black Caps have used to describe their intentions in this respect (and illustrated by McCullum throughout the tournament) is ‘aggressive’. Although the argument could be considered nothing more than semantics, what the Black Caps needed to be was ‘assertive’ not aggressive. Aggression, from a mind-set perspective, promotes risk and reactive tendencies whereas assertiveness enables athletes to be at their best whilst retaining an equally high degree of control (think, Guptil’s 237 against the West Indies or Elliotts unbeaten 84 against the Proteas followed by a similar effort at the MCG). The point is, New Zealand needed to go for it to give themselves a chance but equally, they needed every player to be at the top of their game to afford such a risk when up against the calibre of those they knew would be wearing the Australian jersey.

Future steps

I like a lot of what I’m seeing in terms of both the coaching Mike Hesson is providing and the development of a number of players, however, we are yet to see the team advancing in terms of their capacity to perform at their best when they are up against those of greater skill.

Reflecting back on each game, it is clear what got them through to the final (in addition to Duckworth-Lewis against South Africa in the semi-final) was the fact a minority of players pulled off the game of their lives at a time someone needed to. These one or two players who were able to step up to a high enough level to have such an impact got the team across the line rather than their victories coming about as a result of each player’s capacity to operate at that level in normal circumstances.

While many will say ‘You have to perform at your best to win the World-Cup’, I do not believe that is what Australia thought they would have to do once they knew they would be up against the Black Caps; hence I agreed with ex Australian cricketing great Matthew Hayden’s comment when he said he believed New Zealand would be found out by Australia at the MCG.

To elaborate on this point, virtually every New Zealander played at least one top-end game in the tournament but up against Australia, Elliot was the only one who looked like the player he had become. What this suggests is the psychological approach they have adopted is reliant upon their confidence growing as a consequence of past efforts rather than it being a pre-determined state they consciously enact upon. In other words, if they believed the notion of ‘keeping the faith’ was the key to their success, they needed to develop a far deeper understanding of how to create the right mind-set to ensure it would withstand the pressure asserted by the best in the business.

That said, the ‘Dare to Dream New Zealand’ campaign was a perfectly pitched idea that captured what was needed, however, unless they knew how to pull it off, there was a greater than equal chance their aggressive approach was going to make them look like a second rate team who were unworthy of contesting the final.

This being the case, the answer to ‘Where to from here?’ is to migrate from an aggressive form of cricket to a more assertive form of cricket. In order to do that Hesson will need to:

1. Keep working on their skills – as he clearly has been.
2. Enable them to believe they are capable of performing at that level, rather than assuming such wins can only come about as a result of individually heroic efforts.

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