Ah Phooey

Congratulations, Pakistan, on a wonderful turnaround to win the World Twenty 20 in style. Good on you for keeping the faith in Shahid Afridi when he couldn't buy a run, with only his confounding legspinners to save him. Well played too, Sri Lanka. In addition to your strong batting and wonderfully varied bowling attack, you unearthed unlikely heroes in Angelo Mathews and Tillekeratne Dilshan.

Now that that's out of the way, I can settle down to a nice little rant about the kiwi performance, especially during the last game against the Sri Lankans. It was excruciatingly atrocious (such a horrendous conjunction of words is just about apt when talking about that particular game) - steady bowling, but a totally brainless approach to chasing a gettable target. In terms of overall talent and quality, I am willing to accept that NZ probably did not merit their customary semi final spot. But what went missing was the common sense and cool-headedness so characteristic of Stephen Fleming's sides in the recent past. For a side to be bowled out in T20 is an anomaly; for it to happen in two consecutive games is galling - though it must be said Umar Gul and the Lankan spinners were magnificent. Graham Thorpe once suggested that the way to face Muttaiah Muralitharan was to "play the ball, not the man". Given that a tour of Sri Lanka is around the corner, NZ should take note; in the last game, they appeared to be in awe of the reputations of Murali and Mendis.

We fans have long been treating kiwi performances in the shorter forms of the game as consolation for a steady decline in test results; can we see some better planning and application towards these games, please? This applies particularly to the senior batsmen. Brendon McCullum appears to have worked out the nuances of batting at the top, but his mistrust of the middle order has left him unsure of whether to go flat out, or anchor the innings. Jacob Oram needs to go elsewhere to get some form and confidence back, while Scott Styris must wonder if restricting himself to a handful of international games and warming the Deccan Chargers bench is a constructive way to spend the year. And finally, Ross Taylor must learn to shut out that ugly legside heave as far as possible and make use of the other strokes he has at his disposal. Such automated slogging a la Mark Greatbatch in 1992 is fine when you have a strong batting lineup to follow, not when you're the side's leading batsman. (Perhaps I need to cut Taylor some slack, given his injury. But should he have been playing that last game then? And I'm a bit worried about the impact T20 is having on his game.)

For me, the silver lining was provided by young Martin Guptill's reaction to being dismissed against the Lankans. After having played a lone hand of 43, the camera focused on him in the player's balcony; he was inconsolable, with head buried in hands. This was a display of the hunger and passion which comes with hating to lose, something that Dion Nash - one of my favourite kiwi cricketers - was known for back in the day. That kind of attitude has been rather dormant in the NZ side for a while, which is why this reaction was a good sign. Guptill has already shown he is a talented strokemaker, and the one test opener who looks like he has an international future ahead of him. I hope he is persisted with and made to develop his game.