Four decades of the World Cup for cricket has traditionally been a rivalry among the same top 8 teams and the cup has been shared among 5 of them whereas neither among England, South Africa and New Zealand has won it ever. This time around, England flattered in the pre-cup tri-series against Australia and India only to deceive by their poor showing in their WC group. South Africa came once again tantalizingly close to win a berth in the final but was done in by the rain. So that leaves behind New Zealand to make their claim once more but their task is made relatively difficult since they play their first match outside home in different conditions at Melbourne Cricket Ground today amidst silly psychological pressure from the Aussie media suggesting how Brendan Mcculum's sixers would be a lollypop catch at the larger MCG ground. As if, the boundaries from Mcculum or Guptil or Taylor or Elliott or Williamson or Anderson have only that much power to just fall over the shorter boundaries at Christchurch or Auckland. If anything its the Aussies who'll have to worry about tackling the short ones from relatively-unknown pacer Boult as well as the tweakers from the hugely-experienced Daniel Vettori. Man to man, New Zealand appears stronger in their batting line-up; but its the quality of batting of Australia's tail that closes the gap. Captain to captain, Clarke appears to be a man lucky to have a quality side while Mcculum continues to charge from the front. On a flat pitch , its expected to be a game of 300+ scores , if not 330+ as both sides, from two great sport-oriented nations, will be pushing hard for results.
Finally, although the betting sites place Aussies as the firm favorite in their seventh final , if moments play in favor of NewZealnd , then they could just pluck the World Cup out of thin air just as Daniel Vettori had plucked this catch near the boundary line during the quarter final match against West Indies.
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