ICC World Cup: New Zealand to take on South Africa in Mumbai
In the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, New Zealand will take on South Africa in Mumbai at 2 PM today.
Rugby is a bigger deal than cricket in New Zealand and South Africa. Small wonder: the All Blacks or the Springboks have won seven of the 10 men’s World Cups yet played, even though the Boks weren’t at the first two because of apartheid.
So there will be no avoiding in Pune on Wednesday the echoes of this year’s final between rugby’s giants, which was played in Paris in the early hours of Sunday morning (IST). The South Africans claimed a record fourth triumph, winning a thunderous, controversy-strewn classic by a single point.
Men’s World Cup matches involving the countries’ cricket teams have have been spiced with drama – the 2011 quarterfinal and 2015 semifinal, for instance – but this rivalry isn’t as keen as it is in rugby. Maybe that’s because New Zealand have beaten South Africa six times in eight meetings. It isn’t much of a rivalry if one side wins significantly more often.
But the South Africans will believe they are capable of pulling one back this time. They are among the biggest batting teams at the tournament, and in Chennai on Friday they offered evidence that they have found a way to play under pressure by hanging tough to beat Pakistan by one wicket in the first close match of this World Cup.
The complication, for South Africa, is that the New Zealanders are themselves not averse to piling on the runs. And, of course, Friday’s match was not a knockout game – which have tended to prompt meltdowns in the team now led by Temba Bavuma.
The complication, for New Zealand, is that Lockie Ferguson, Kane Williamson and Mark Chapman are carrying significant injuries. Those are problems in three important areas that have made them a competitive team.
The other complication is that, with the semifinal line-up solidifying with each passing match, this game is more about who goes where in the final four than anything else. Both teams will be reasonably confident of making the semis, but will they play Australia or India there? Winning, and losing, on Wednesday will go some way towards answering that question.
New Zealand’s other remaining opponents in the league stage are Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They should have the measure of both. But South Africa will be at Eden Gardens on Sunday for a clash with unbeaten India. They won’t want to be thinking about what went wrong in Pune as they take the flight to Kolkata.
Cricket matches between New Zealand and South Africa are often distilled to a tussle that pits the former’s famous flintiness against the latter’s supposedly superior strength. That narrative will again be afoot in this match, but so will something else.
When you grow up in the shadow of rugby and play cricket instead, and you know you have picked the sport that doesn’t grab your compatriots’ attention nearly as much as the other, you also know you need to take every chance to show them why you have made the right choice. This, for all involved, is one such chance.
Squads:
New Zealand Squad: Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham(w/c), Glenn Phillips, James Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi, Mark Chapman
South Africa Squad: Quinton de Kock(w), Temba Bavuma(c), Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi, Reeza Hendricks, Kagiso Rabada, Andile Phehlukwayo, Lizaad Williams
