The last time the BLACKCAPS met England, it was a stormy night in Chittagong in the World T20, where the players were forced from the field by a thunderstorm, after Brendon McCullum produced a storm of his own with the bat to reach the Duckworth Lewis target and win the match for New Zealand.
If things are less dramatic, with the same outcome, McCullum won't mind a bit.
The captain announced today that the BLACKCAPS would remain unchanged for the third successive ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 fixture which will be played in front of a full house of 34,000 fans in Wellington.
England, who have finished runner-up on three occasions in the ICC World Cup since it began in 1975, were humbled in their opening game against Australia, losing by 111 runs in Melbourne.
McCullum maintained that England presents a difficult challenge.
“They have got match winners,” said the 33-year-old from the Basin Reserve.
“The wickets that we play on allow match winners to come into the game. While they haven’t been firing of late, they are a very dangerous proposition. We are respectful of that.”
McCullum said there is quality right across the England team. He said Eoin Morgan has “an uncanny ability to hit to all areas and he see opportunities,” and highlighted keeper-bat Joss Buttler as a danger man.
“They have bowlers [Stuart Broad and James Anderson] who have been around for a long time and had a huge amount of success in all forms of the game. On paper it is a very strong side. They have obviously struggled recently but it doesn’t mean that they are not quality players.”
McCullum caught up with under fire English skipper Morgan last night and has no doubt that he will come good soon, he just hopes it isn’t tomorrow.
The 28-year-old has made four ducks in his last five innings and England fans would like nothing more than to see their skipper make a contribution on the big stage.
“He is a champion bloke,” McCullum said of Morgan.
“He is one of my better mates from around the world in terms of cricket. He is obviously going through a tough time at the moment, but tough times don’t last but the tough blokes do. Hopefully at some point he will come out of it but I also hope that tomorrow we can keep him quiet.”
The BLACKCAPS, who have defeated Sri Lanka by 98 runs and Scotland by three wickets to be top of Pool A in the early stages, are also mindful of their own ability.
McCullum said the favourite tag for his team means nothing coming into this fixture at Westpac Stadium.
“It doesn’t matter if you are favourites or the underdog. When you got out onto the pitch you start in an even keel. We just try to go about our work and we will try to handle the expectation that has risen recently. We know that we can’t get too far in front of ourselves we are not a good enough team to do so.”
The BLACKCAPS were far from content with their “scratchy” three wicket win over Scotland on Tuesday and are looking for improvement in their batting tomorrow. McCullum isn’t worried.
“I think the guys have been performing really well as a batting group of late,” he said. “We can certainly improve from that. There is no doubting that it wasn’t our finest batting performance and we go into tomorrow knowing that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We know our game plan works.”
McCullum said this BLACKCAPS side has a clear blueprint for success and will look to replicate that tomorrow to continue their momentum.
“We try to be reasonably aggressive early on. We have got some quality craft players at three, four and five and we have some power to follow. It depends if you lose early wickets on how you can construct an innings but overall the blueprint is set for us. It is just a matter of how we step up and perform against different opposition.”
He said that all of the team are looking forward to running out onto Westpac Stadium to a full house.
“It good when you have been playing good cricket and the country gets right behind you, the boys thrive off that. Playing in front of 30,000 at a ground, that when you have 5-6000 it can be pretty loud, so it is going to be a great atmosphere.”
For all the talk about England, McCullum said the focus is mostly on themselves and delivering a performance that they are proud of.
“If they turn up on the day and we play our best game and they still beat us, fair play to them. The essential thing for us is turning up and playing our best game.”
BLACKCAPS for ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 match v England
Brendon McCullum (c)
Corey Anderson
Trent Boult
Grant Elliott
Martin Guptill
Adam Milne
Luke Ronchi (wk)
Tim Southee
Ross Taylor
Daniel Vettori
Kane Williamson
