They probably won’t, but it would be cute if they did.

They have a top four that has the skill to scare some teams, and the late order with the hitting power to boost some totals, but they need every single player to be at their best for two games and that is not likely.

They do however have some things in their favour.  Sri Lanka has a similar line up to South Africa.  And if Pakistan make the final, they’ve already beaten them.  If they play India in the final, they can hope for a plane crash the night before the game.

All they can do is try and bat first, put on a reasonable total, nothing too special, then use tight bowling, Martin Guptil’s Roger Ramjet fielding, and a bit of lip hoping that all three can make the opposition feel the pressure of being in a big game get to them.

If they bowl first, they probably need a lot of luck and some run outs.  Also some bad umpiring decisions followed by poor use of the UDRS would help.  As would Kyle Mills going into the changerooms to torment the opposition before they get out there as a pre-emptive strike.

Their team is not horrible, but until Pakistan stopped hitting the pitch and South Africa choked they looked like they were lucky they didn’t have to play Ireland or Bangladesh.

If they did win the world cup they’d be the first team to ever do it without a strike bowler and it would be the biggest thing to happen to New Zealand since Bad Taste was released.

What New Zealand must do

Never give up, never surrender, hope like hell other teams will choke under their disciplined bowling and fielding effort.

How to beat New Zealand

Fast bowling did it for Australia; spin bowling did it for India.  Twice this team has failed to get to 200, and they didn’t make much more than that against South Africa.  While the batting line up is long, (strangely the longest left in the tournament), they are prone to a complete collapse from head to toe.

I think the best way to do this is to attack them at all times.  When you’re attacking them one wicket seems to send a panic through all of them.  They will probably struggle to put on a total of 300 plus and blow you out of the water, so you can afford to be a bit more attacking.

Their bowling and fielding has far less big names and performs much more as a competent unit.  Their fifth bowler, if Oram plays purely as a bowler like he has, might be a weakness.  Vettori didn’t like giving Woodcock the ball against South Africa, if you can attack him and Styris, they might be in trouble.  Also Vettori is a big weakness in the field.

If your team is struggling and suddenly four tall men are around you after you’ve made a dreadful mistake, keep your elbows at the ready and “accidentally” push your bat handle into their genitals.  They might be tall, but few people like a bat handle to the groin.

What not to do against New Zealand

Hit the ball near Guptill and run.

I regard Bert Sutcliffe as good enough to be Victorian. And that is about as high praise as I can give a non-Victorian.

The story about him and Bob Blair’s partnership is perhaps my favourite in cricket, it involves death, injury and how even a small victory in those circumstances can become a folk story. Plus, everyone loves a moral victory in a crushing loss.

Because of the Ashes, I haven’t read all of this, but I liked the bits I saw.

So you should buy it. In NZ you can get it here, in Aus you can get it here, and shortly the rest of the world can soon get it here.

For a normal dictator that is annexing an island or stealing the mascot of your neighbour, for a cricket dictator who selects the team, coach, and selectors while designing the team shirt, making sure Jesse is locked to his bed and that Adam Parore doesn’t slate him daily it’s getting wins on the board.

Like most Dictators, Dan Vettori took on too much.

Vettori was right to rename Tuesday Vettoriday, set the record straight on gay players, cut the team’s oranges, start wearing a leopard skin fez and rewriting the bible to make Jesus a left arm finger spinner who makes more runs than you’d expect from someone of his stylistic devoid play.

The problem is that while he was doing these important things, others were scheming.

If Shakespeare has taught us little more than to kill yourself before you check your partner’s pulse, it’s shown us that people scheme to get power.

I can imagine it now, while Dan Vettori was hosting a benefit party for Scott Stryis’ thighs, Greatbatch (his ally) and Wright (the mercenary) were hatching a plot. I can see them cackling as Wright stirred a big pot of L&P and Greatbatch ate his fush and chup pavlova.

Poor Dan, just trying to rule in a pseudo-benevolent manner so his country had a chance, was shot down in cold blood.

No longer the defacto coach, no longer a selector at all, now just a normal captain who has to do nothing other than play, train, travel and say clichés.

How the mightily organised and overworked have fallen.

Justin Vaughan is yet to release a statement about this change in supreme leader, only because he is too busy cleaning out the blood from Vettori’s whites.

Alas, poor Dan! I knew him, Justin.

The cricket sadist.

“I’m delighted to take Sachin’s wicket. It’s the biggest scalp of my career,”

Jeetan Patel

If I got Sachin Tendulkar out, I’d probably say something stupid too.

But is there a bigger scalp in world cricket than Sachin Tendulkar?

Sure, outside world cricket there are bigger scalps.

Godzilla, Barack Obama and Dakota Fanning, to name a few.

Now Jeetan has taken down Sachin, he could probably take down Godzilla and Obama, as long as they didn’t team up.

He probably couldn’t take down Dakota though, but if he did, he’d probably say.

“I’m delighted to put Dakota’s head on a stick.  It may look like a small scalp, but it’s the biggest scalp of my career.”

Jeetan Patel

‘There can be only one’ was a line written by someone who had never seen the Indian batting line up.  They have a long tail, but they sort of double dare you to get to it. New Zealand may never seen it.

New Zealand

If you can’t bowl or field, playing against Sehwag is like running into a bull for hours on end.  Is it too late for them to pretend they left the oven on at home?

Who’s in front

New Zealand can still win this.  The problem is they need a renegade CIA force, 24million dollars in unmarked bills and a nuclear warhead.

Play of the day

If you are the 12^th man who has to field for a team that is struggling and the oppositions most threatening batsman hits the ball straight up in the air close enough to you for you to take the catch, it would really hurt you emotionally to drop it.  For that same ball to hit your nuts, that is the beginning of a Hank Williams song. Isn’t it, Martin Guptil.

Testicular moment of the day

Sehwag looked ok.

Working class moment of the day

Poor Dictator Dan.  He is trying to cross the Pacific Ocean in a kids inflatable swimming pool.  The only luck he can have is that a seagull pops it before he gets to too far from the coast.

Weird factoid of the day

Jeetan Patel’s dropped catch off his own bowling was perhaps the best audition to be the screaming victim in a horror film I’ve seen in years.

However, no team is unbeatable, even by a bunch of semi amateur miscreants wearing black caps.

To help the Kiwis I’ve devised a blueprint on how they can beat India.

Sachin

OK, so actually winning will be hard, but there are other things you can do to save face.  I suggest that every press gathering be used to abuse Sachin Tendulkar.  Call him a paedophile, suggest he beats old woman, say you saw him pissing on a beggar, anything you can think of that will piss off Indians so much that they ask you to leave the country.  Don’t say Ponting is better than him, as that might result in death.

Raelians

It has been a long time since the Raelians outed themselves as Cloners of humans.  And no sports team has really cashed in on this.  Think of a squad with 3 Hadlees, 2 Bonds, 3 Vettoris, 2 Flemings, 3 Sutcliffes and 2 M Crowes.  Plus the Raelians claim they can clone the dead, so bring Walter Hadlee and Bob Blair back for guidance and inspiration.  You could also clone a friend for Adam Parore as well.

Humanoids

Those sad and lonely Japanese scientists have all the technology to replicate a human, now all you need to do is amp the shit up on their right shoulder, turning them into bowling machines.  Just tell the media that one of your bowlers in injured, and that you are replacing them with a 7 foot 4 sheep farmer from Wannafuk.  That should explain the awkward nature of him.   It doesn’t even need to be automated, just get the player with the best skills on xbox to control this monster.  While you are there buy some lovely lady humanoids as well, you know, for those lonely tours.

Drugs

Don’t day no, say hell yes.  Embrace the performance-enhancing and enhance your shit. There must be performance-enhancing drugs that people can’t test for these days.  So find a dealer and get all East German on it.  And don’t give me that crap that performance enhancing drugs don’t help in cricket, pump them in your veins and then watch your miss hits go over the rope while your third testicle pops out of your neck.

Lalit

Bring him back.  Come to London, find his flat, bring him back to India.  Ross Taylor could do it; I’ve always assumed that he would be a good spy if not one-dimensional spy.  Once Lalit is back everyone will be talking about that, and how Kiwis are heroes.  Getting thrashed in the series will become a very small story.

Human cannon ball

Daniel Flynn isn’t doing much these days.  Take a look at him; no man is more suited to being a human cannonball than he is.  So use him.  Fire him at Sehwag, VVS, Dhoni, Sachin and Che before each test.  The worst outcome is that Daniel Flynn won’t play test cricket anymore. And since I’m one of his 7 fans, most people won’t care. Also, human cannonballs are fun.

Obviously some of these plans are slightly flawed, but they would be fun.

There once was a cricketer more romantic than you, who decided to make his career by bowling into the wind. He had an extra “I” in his name for no reason, liked taking pictures of his own feet, and became Test cricket’s greatest blogger along the way.

He is Iain Edward O’Brien, enemy to ghostwriters, saviour of into-the-wind bowling and hero to those he tweets to. While most of us would never have noticed this hardworking Kiwi quick had he not talked about being called rude things by the Gabba crowd, we now know him, and we await his every tweet, blog and commentary stint with the hunger of Bon Jovi fans.

When he left international cricket to be with his wife, international cricket sobbed a big wet soppy tear at losing a true romantic.

Luckily for those who live in the British Isles, it was the cultural hotbed of Matlock that Iain chose to live in with his wife. This meant that while some cricket fans would miss out on him, British fans would get to see him up close and personal when he signed for Middlesex.

It is true that while playing for Middlesex, Iain spent most of his time with his butt in the air (not an Ijaz joke) with physios and doctors manipulating his injured posterior. When he was fit, he would pop in with a seven-wicket haul, but such is the class of this man that even injured he could keep county cricket fans happy with endless jokes about his injury.

Iain is truly a man of the cyber people and also the darling of Lord’s. Chatting to po-faced Middlesex fans for hours on end about the team they love, while looking resplendent in their pink colours. He even took to the microphone in between extensive rear-end medical work, working his magic for the BBC London, Five Live Sports Extra and Test Match Sofa.

You might be thinking, is there nothing this man can’t do?

Well, he can’t bat, and thanks to a scandalous group that also reside at Lord’s, he can no longer play county cricket for Middlesex. The ECB (or friends of Allen Stanford as some call them) has decided that even though Iain O’Brien has qualified as an English player through his romantic intentions, and that he could legally work for the ECB, he cannot play cricket in England.

I tried to contact a few other county players to see what they thought about Iain O’Brien’s case, but most of them were in South Africa. On holiday, I guess.

Thanks to the ECB’s wacky decision, Iain will probably have to play for some side in Matlock. You know what this means: Iain bouncing young villagers due to still being angry at the ECB. Is that what you want? Surely not.

In Ricky Ponting’s latest book he takes precious time out of talking about how the media abuse him, just to have a go at Iain O’Brien for an incident at the Adelaide Oval. I think you will agree with me that any man who annoys Ricky that much needs our support.

Let us help keep the most romantic cricketer in the world stay at Middlesex, join the Facebook group.

I couldn’t possibly show you every photo that was cricket related, but these are my favourites, they’re unedited, because I can’t be bothered.

Every night Mahela and I drink coke together, you could be this happy if you drink coke. Look how happy we are.  Really happy.

Hey man, what’s happening, yeah, coke man, i love it, I’m so fucking high right now, I know you can’t tell, cause I pull it off well, but really I am high.  But I look normal, don’t i.  I’m not, I’m high. Let’s go to white castle.

Not enough countries have cricket graffiti. This is a win for Sri Lanka.

A rare photo of Saddam Hussein and Murali.

Dude, buy coke for your family.  Sugar and caffeine rock.

A free book for the person to correctly name these 4 New Zealand cricketers.  Yes that is a trick question, no one can correctly name kiwi cricketers. Nathan McCullum is on the left, ladies.

Look at these dudes working and sitting on trucks while a cool photo of Malinga is in front of them.

I saw these guys at Dambulla.  I hope they all fail. Lazy bastards.

I also have more photos of Dambulla, but this is enough for one day, surely.