Black Caps Black Book ... /Diary - Apologies To The Queen, But It's Good To Be A Keeeeweeee!
What can you say about a performance like that? Well, I earn a living saying shit about performances like that so.....
Tim Southee was very humble after the game, as he pushed the 'it was just a good day' angle which may be considered rude but when you know that Southee's had many of these days throughout his cricketing career and it's just a good day.
Southee was the man with the wickets, 7/33 is outstanding but of course the entire Stable did the trick. Trent Boult was good up front, Adam Milne chipped in and Daniel Vettori took a wicket - he's taken at least a wicket in every single game so far this World Cup. But there were only a few wickets up for grabs thanks to Tim, so Vettori's record dipped a bit here.
Swing bowling, ya know it's odd because there's not many external/uncontrollable factors that can contribute to a good day with the bat. As we dig far too deep in to the balance of bat vs ball, Southee showed that top shelf swing bowling is one of the answers. But swing bowling is up to the cricketing gods, all you can do is release the ball perfectly, bowl good areas and ... let the ball do the rest.
There's something mystical about swing bowling and it's fucking fantastic that we've got a few masters - wizards.
Not the Stuart Broad/Draco Malfoy type of wizard though, he sucks and it's awesome.
Southee put the digits up, but if this was a 'You The Real MVP' meme, there would be a picture of Brendon McCullum, commonly known around these ways as the cricketing deity Natty Mac.
May we all take a moment to appreciate the work of Natty Mac
(We recommend that you start your day with an offering of cooked eggs to Natty Mac, as well as venturing in to the back yard to replicate the willow wielding exploits of Natty Mac)
You could see the nature of Natty Mac's captaincy long before the World Cup, but this was perhaps the biggest stage and his genius was on display for many to see. It wasn't just the attacking fields, the multiple slips etc but the know how, quickly realising who had the hot had and going for the jugular.
This needs to be noted - many captains would have let the game drift, despite being on top. The English batted out 33 overs and some captains, maybe a few former Black Cap skippers, would have settled for keeping England's total under wraps. Natty Mac said fuck all that, let's win and send a message.
Oh wait, he batted like that as well.
There weren't many differences between the Scotland and England game in terms of the Black Caps run chase, against Scotland it simply didn't work but they still crossed the finish line first.
So while everyone was getting a bit scared, asking questions, digging far too deep in to that effort, the Black Caps ... well Natty Mac came out to show everyone that the Black Caps bat a certain way. It came off...
Oooooh it's good to be a kiwi, oooooh it's good to be a keewee!
Shit, here comes some context.
Enjoy this win for what it is, a demolition of the Motherland, because that's the mentality of the players - enjoy the win, but move on.
It doesn't really mean a whole lot. England can still make the quarters, we'll still make the quarters and there's a very real possibility that England could beat us in a knockout game of cricket. The World Cup is such that the only games that matter are the knockout games and with a bulging period of pool games, we can dine out on this win for a few days but no one will care about this game if we slip up later on in the tournament.
#DoYourJob
The lads are just doing their jobs and they're doing them supremely well. But if you ask the West Indian coach, we could be peaking too early...
MVP OG P-I-M-P and Undercover Brother can go to hell today, it was all about Tim Southee and Natty Mac, praise.