When talking about Indian cricket, and the conversation has made all its usual pitstops – how good they are, what they could do better – there sometimes comes a moment for reflection. For everybody who makes it, there are hundreds who don’t. The BCCI is in an eternal state of ‘better to have and not want’ than ‘need and not have,’ which must help, because their team is about to play a fifth ICC men’s white-ball final in the last 11 years. Exactly the same as their opponents on Sunday by the way, which is funny because in 2023, New Zealand made a major breakthrough. The ratio of sheep to people in their country hit a 170-year low. At five to one. In favour of sheep.
“Obviously the talent that comes out of India is phenomenal,” Glenn Phillips said on Friday. “You know they could probably pick three sides that would compete just as evenly in this World Cup.”
Oh GP. Don’t give ’em any ideas. By the way, to illustrate what Phillips said, his Gujarat Titans captain is currently surplus to India’s T20 requirements.
After a month of hard-fought tournament play, it is really cool that these two teams have come through the crowd. India have always been at the forefront of T20 cricket. They were the first to franchise it, a phenomenon that has since been trickling down to most of the country’s major centres. Varun Chakravarthy came out of the Tamil Nadu Premier League. Shivam Dube, the Mumbai T20 League.
New Zealand in-house their talent just as well, though the challenges they face are slightly different. The weather, for example, which dips below freezing in the winter, is also why NZC erects a marquee 45m long and 12m wide to shield part of the playing area at their High Performance Centre in Lincoln. They use growth lamps, which are typically used to nurture indoor plants, but in this case they make sure there’s just enough grass on the surface and that it is completely dry. All for the benefit of the wayward few who did not grow up wanting to be like Jonah Lomu or Richie McCaw.
Kane Williamson admitted it. “I think when we were growing up, we all wanted to be All Blacks and that couldn’t happen so we tried something else.” Rugby to New Zealand is what cricket is to India. A national identity. A compulsion that even draws in other celebrities.
In 2023, New Zealand made time to watch the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup even though they were in the middle of a World Cup of their own. Taika Waititi was at the Stade de France when Sam Whitelock pulled off a last-minute turnover to beat Ireland in the quarter-final. And fans filming themselves yelling his name as they won 28-24 went viral on Tiktok.
Paul Wiseman, the former Black Caps offspinner and current talent identification manager, accounts for these parameters as he goes about his work. “We have to be quite smart with what we have got,” he said in 2024, which explains the desperation not to allow budding cricketers to go into hibernation for three winter months.
“We have to invest in what we think is the right talent but we also have to be able to give them time. We tend to be a little bit later developing, and that’s probably because we encourage our athletes to play as many sports as they can until they have to make a decision [about which one to focus on].
“A lot of our athletes could have been All Blacks and Black Caps, or hockey players or basketball players as well. So we’ve got a number of guys that play other sports to a high level, and the risk is we [might] lose them to that sport. But if we encourage them to do that, we’re going to get more rounded persons and athletes, and by the time they choose to come to our sport, they will be a better athlete for it rather than specialising early.”
One of Phillips’ childhood friends was a sprinter. Clearly some secrets were passed on. Daryl Mitchell’s father was a former All Blacks coach. So, mental toughness is ingrained. New Zealand keep up with the rest of the world because they understand cricket doesn’t exist in an isolated ecosystem. It is susceptible to outside influence.
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T20 World Cup final 2026 – Ind vs NZ – Santner: ‘Wouldn’t mind breaking a few hearts’
The New Zealand skipper speaks ahead of the World Cup final against India
“For us to go out and compete with teams around the world with such a small population is fantastic,” Phillips said. “But I think we put it down a lot to our team culture, our preparation and I guess trying to do the little things well.”
India appreciate that too. They’ve enlisted the services of sports psychologists to help them cope with the larger-than-normal pressure their lives bring. Virtually every member of the current India squad is an IPL superstar and the BCCI protects that tournament so much that they don’t go looking for opportunities elsewhere. New Zealand’s players only have the Super Smash at home to hone their short-format skills. But once they reach a certain level, opportunities open up.
The NZC has made peace with this reality. Many of the Black Caps players are on casual contracts. Finn Allen (BBL), Tim Seifert (BBL), Lockie Ferguson (ILT20), Jimmy Neesham (ILT20 and BPL) and Devon Conway (SA20) were all involved in franchise competitions around the globe in the lead-up to this T20 World Cup and every bit of their experience will have come in handy considering they have had to adjust to spin-friendly conditions in Sri Lanka and run-friendly conditions in India. Eighteen years after a Kiwi helped the IPL take flight on opening night, there finally is movement on a franchise competition based in New Zealand. Brendon McCullum, Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori have been reported to play an advisory role at the NZ20, a concept that is gaining ground as a possible alternative to the Super Smash.
Perhaps this is why India and New Zealand keep being pulled together in these high-profile knockout settings. The contrast must create a cosmic connection. India reached the final with 14 wins in 15 T20 World Cup games. The title would be the ultimate flex. No host nation has ever won one, nor has a champion been able to defend their crown. But they’ve already made some boss moves.
When they needed to solve a top-order crisis, they could call on someone with more IPL runs than their captain. If they are worried the No. 1 ranked T20I bowler might be a liability in the final, they can swap him out with someone who has the most hat-tricks for India across formats.
When New Zealand needed injury cover, on the other hand, they flew in someone who hadn’t played any internationals for two years and dropped him straight into the XI. The thing is though, Cole McConchie has the same chance as Sanju Samson and Kuldeep Yadav to wake up on Monday as a world champion.
