Black Caps brace for Irish threat
The Black Caps’ last group match at the T20 World Cup is a banana skin if there ever was one.
Beat Ireland today at the Adelaide Oval and they’ll be into the semifinals, almost certainly as the top seed from group one, and most likely facing India.
Lose to Ireland, and they’ll need Australia to suffer a shock loss of their own against Afghanistan at the same venue later tonight, otherwise they’ll be on their way home.
An exit from the tournament before the semifinals would be ignominious in the extreme, especially after they started so strongly, with a stunning win over hosts Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
It would be the first time the Black Caps have missed the semifinals at a white-ball World Cup since the 2014 T20 event in Bangladesh.
And it would be a historic moment, because it would be their first loss at a World Cup to a team other than one of the first eight test-playing nations.
There has historically been a gulf between Australia, England, India, New Zealand Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies and the rest of the world, a group led by the other four test-playing nations: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ireland and Zimbabwe.
With the exception of the Black Caps, the teams in that first group have all lost to a team from the second group at least twice at white-ball World Cups.
The dividing line between those groups hasn’t always been clearcut.
In some cases, such as with the Zimbabwe at the 1999 one-day international World Cup in Eng
land, the lesser-fancied teams have been genuine contenders.
At a time when they could call on the Flower brothers, Andy and Grant, with the bat, as well as Heath Streak with the ball, they beat their hosts, India and South Africa, but still fell short of the semifinals.
Modern Bangladesh teams have had some purple patches as well, so it’s no surprise they account for eight of the 25 World Cup upsets of this nature, with Zimbabwe claiming seven.
The other 10 are shared between Afghanistan, Ireland, Kenya, Namibia, the Netherlands and Scotland.
Five of the 25 have come at this T20 World Cup, with Ireland beating England, Zimbabwe beating Pakistan, Namibia beating Sri Lanka, and Ireland and Scotland both beating the West Indies – results which sent the two-time champions home after the first round.
Mitchell Santner said after New Zealand’s loss to England on Tuesday that they would head into their must-win match against Ireland wary of their threat, especially after their earlier successes at this World Cup.
‘‘We’ve seen throughout this tournament there’s been upsets. There’s been teams playing pretty well. I guess with the nature of T20 cricket, if one or two guys step up on the day, they can kind of turn games.
‘‘We know Ireland are a very good team. We’re not sure what Adelaide is going to give us, but we’ll do our prep and see what we’re going to get and format a plan against a pretty good side.’’