So it is the Black Caps vs. Australia in the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy and I think it is fair to say that the two best teams have come through a busy two weeks.
I was at the Wanderers last night and I had to admire how well the New Zealand team performed considering how little support they had! I kid you not - 90% of the support was for the Pakistani team - great atmosphere considering the home team wasn't playing.
Big kudos to the New Zealand side - they came through a tough tournament and a tricky total to chase down and they did it to perfection. Some of you will remember that I backed Grant Elliot (pictured) to score runs in the last game and he promptly delivered a duck but he came good last night in spectacular style.
One performance which I thought didn't get enough credit was that of Daniel Vettori - batting at six for New Zealand shows there are some shortcomings in that batting line-up but boy oh boy did he deliver the goods last night! It needed somebody to take the responsibility of sticking with Elliot to the end.
On current form - Vettori must be one of the best one-day international players in the game at the moment.
Considering the love-hate relationship South Africans have with Australia, I have to wonder how partizan the crowd are going to be when the two teams clash in the final!
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Yeah, lets hope for a great Trans-Tasman final. Kudos to NZ for the way the fought the injuries to reach the finals from nowhere. They need the batting trio of McCullum, Taylor and Guptill to really fire tonight in the batting dept. Bond and Vettori are in form with the bowl. Butler, Mills and Franklin are also doing the support cast role well.
Credit to their bowlers - I thought they really put in a consistent performance.
Pity about these rumours suggesting that Pakis threw the match that are circulating today.
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