Post-1992 NZ Cricket World Cup exits ranked by pain
Sport Review #260
2003 | Eliminated in silly super six format
Aside from an iconic Stephen Fleming century and some cracking Shane Bond yorkers, this was a world cup to forget. Greater pain lies ahead.
2007 | Lost to Sri Lanka by 81 runs in semi final, Kingston
2011 | Lost to Sri Lanka by five wickets in semi final, Colombo
Weird cricketing purgatory, when it seemed we’d make the semi finals, feel stoked about it, then lose to a really well organised Sri Lanka side forever more. Didn’t hurt, but didn’t really feel good either.
1996 | Lost to Australia by six wickets in quarter final, Chennai
We were close in this one, thanks to a plucky Chris Harris ton getting us to 286, a massive score at the time, which of course a great Aussie team then chased pretty comfortably. Also - quarter finals? Pick a format ICC.
1999 | Lost to Pakistan by nine wickets in semi final, Manchester
We were labelled Dark Horses for the first time at this world cup, which sounded pretty cool in all honesty. This was a great world cup, despite being played at peak baggy cricket shirt - we wasted the bloody Aussies in Cardiff in one of the great days but then came up hard against an inspired Pakistan in the semi, which never ends well, as we knew.
2023 | Lost to India by 70 runs in semi final, Mumbai
No Mitchell Mumbai miracle. Beaten by the best team in the world playing at home when arguably we did well to even make the semis. That’s it. If you open the door to thinking about ‘end of golden generations’ and ‘last time we see these guys in world cup’, and wind up crying in the toilets at work, that’s on you.
2015 | Lost to Australia by seven wickets in final, Melbourne
A great world cup. Fresh off rampaging through the group and iconic wins over Australia in the group and South Africa in the semi final, we were up against Australia in Melbourne in our first world cup final.
The BLACKCAPS were showing you could play great attacking cricket without being dicks, which was a red rag to the Aussies, who doubled down hard on the shithousery with Brad Haddin (who dropped that catch btw) and James Faulkner being massive tools.
McCullum’s approach in the first over still divides fans (he was being true to his own game and wanted to set the tone, but picked the wrong ball to do it is the correct answer), but we just didn’t get enough runs, despite crawling our way back into the first innings then falling away.
There’s a bleak kind of pride in making our first final, but it really felt like we had the team to win this time. And we had to watch the Australians celebrate, ugh.
1992 | Lost to Pakistan by four wickets in semi final, Auckland
So many iconic moments. Martin Crowe getting an imperious 91, then watching us field from the stands. Inzamam, 12, ruining us just when it all seemed under control. The tearful lap of honour.
We absolutely dominated this tournament, riding a wave of massive crowds and Greatbach / Latham sixes to qualify first, and beating Pakistan at Eden park seemed a formality before going to our first final. We’ll never know what might have happened if Martin Crowe with his innovative captaincy had been on the field in the second innings, which makes it all worse.
The sands of time and our McCullum / Williamson era performances, along with the Mace, have softened this game’s pain, but never forget, this was traumatic.
2019 | Lost to England on some fucked up boundary countback in final, London
My nemesis. There’s a good portion of New Zealand Cricket Twitter who still can’t acknowledge this game every took place.
I didn’t have high expectations going into this world cup and we only scraped through into the semis, then had a storming win over a strong India.
Then we were there, in probably our best ever chance to win it - the thing that sticks with me is the run of incredible bad luck moments that would never happen again. Trent stepping on the rope and the hitting the bat / overthrows bit for starters - that led to the tie and led to the loss and led to us losing on a technicality. Which was bullshit.
I remember going through that Monday in a daze, ringing mates for debriefs. There were long silences. It was a phenomenal game of cricket that gets replayed all the time during rain, but no-one in New Zealand wants to watch this brutality again. Truly the one that got away.
This week's best NZ sport content
Media Watch on the Rugby World Cup - is anyone going to watch this fairly unspectacular spectacles, who’s trying to make it happen and what are the consequences if they don’t? [RNZ]
Merryn Anderson leaves Locker Room, after a fine contribution in this fine incubator for up and coming women journalists [Locker Room]
It turns out breezy inconsequential lifestyle content about France and the All Blacks is a hard sell when all we really want is the proper Drive To Survive about the team and the Duane Monkley channel [NZ Herald]
Latest Sport NZ study, done straight after the Women’s Football World Cup, shows the rise in interest in women’s sport - fascinating stats on the most popular teams here, with the Black Ferns #2 behind the All Blacks [Locker Room]
Big read from Gregor Paul on the All Blacks’ journey from being rubbish to suddenly pretty good again, with lots of niggle and quite interesting detail about hotels and meeting rooms thrown in [NZ Herald]
Joseph Pearson says the contrast between the men’s and women’s RWC finals couldn’t have been more stark, and he is right [Stuff]
Thanks for reading - Richard
Video nasty
We’re all going to hell.
Long read
Rob Harvilla of the amazing 60 Songs That Explain the 90’s podcast has written a book, here’s the chapter about when Metallica sold out [Ringer]
Recommendation
As someone who still does Young Ones quotes multiple times a day, Adrian Edmonson on Desert Island Discs is probably the most poignant thing I’d heard in a long time, from his messed up military family and private school upbringing to how things ended up with his old mate Rik [BBC]
Bonus recommendation - here’s all of Filthy, Rich and Catflap