Brendon McCullum and his team have already created history by scripting New Zealand’s maiden entry into the World Cup final and they have golden opportunity to go a step further on Sunday. The Kiwi skipper has led the team both with the bat and some aggressive captaincy, and the final against Australia will be the biggest test of both the facets of his game. Excerpts from his pre-match press do.
On would he change his batting style given the size of the occasion: I'm not planning on changing. I'll stick to the same aggression. It would be a bit silly to change, wouldn't it? We'll have a go. We'll step up tomorrow and we'll try to be as good as we've been throughout this tournament. And it gives us, as I said, our greatest chance of success. So, to try to play like anyone else is foolish.
On the analogy ‘is this like Kiwi rounding the bend at last, about to rip the Melbourne Cup away from the Aussie’: That would be nice, wouldn't it? I'm not sure what else we'll do out that day, but I'm sure tomorrow we'll go out as the underdogs. Saying all along underdogs are favourites is an irrelevant tag once the game gets underway. But I do like using racing analogy, and used plenty of it throughout the World Cup and I'll use some tomorrow before we go out to play as well.
On whether this is the final he wanted: Yeah, I think that's a fair call. A hundred thousand people in Australia's backyard, MCG and the history and traditions and against a very good Australia. I guess this is the ultimate game for us to be able to play in everyone's theory. So, with that I'm sure some guys will be nervous tomorrow, so I guess there is some excitement about us going out there tomorrow and putting our skills against the best in their backyard. So that certainly whets the appetite and creates the greatest stage we can ask for.
On the effort to intimidate NZ with the size of the ground: No, we're not intimidated. We're excited. I guess right through the week there's been a healthy sort of chat about those things externally. We're just going about our work in the same way. We know if we play well we'll be tough to beat, and, yeah, that's pretty much our preparation.
