Adjustment key for New Zealand

New Zealand scraped through to the last four of the World Cup, having to rely on their net run rate being superior to Pakistan’s after losing their last three league games. Yet, England captain Eoin Morgan said after the semifinal against Australia and before today’s World Cup final against the Kiwis at Lord’s that the Black Caps were the best side in the league stages. That could well be because, arguably, New Zealand have been the side that have adapted to the differing conditions across the UK best.

It was the ability to adjust and to stay in the moment during matches that skipper Kane Williamson focused on when talking about his team’s chances of winning a maiden World Cup trophy.

“There’s always more to the picture than just the end point and that is the focus for us as a team; it’s actually putting our efforts into the moment,” Williamson said during the pre-match press conference yesterday. “It may well be very different to other sides and how they operate, which is fine.”

Along with Afghanistan, New Zealand are the only side not to have scored 300 in this World Cup. They have however been effective at winning the crunch moments, such as keeping their cool to overcome Bangladesh in a tight run chase or reassessing conditions in the semifinal against India to recalibrate the desired first-innings total down from the 300-plus they had judged before the match. It proved to be a winning assessment.

“We have tried to adjust to the conditions as best we could and we’ve been fairly effective in doing that,” Williamson added.

About the green Lord’s wicket, Williamson said: “Perhaps encouraging to seam bowlers on both sides. But we don’t know what the wicket has in store, there’s still a bit of time between now and the start of play. It’s a fairly fair surface here but I think one that guys need to adapt quickly to, like any other surface in the World Cup.”

Given their track record of smart adjustments, the odds are that they will adjust well today.