By Tim Collins
Co-hosts New Zealand and Australia meet in a heavyweight clash at the 2015 Cricket World Cup on Saturday, with the match likely to be pivotal in deciding who claims top spot in Pool A.
Venue: Eden Park, Auckland
Date: Saturday, Feb. 28
Start Time: 1 a.m. GMT/2 p.m. local
Live On: ATN and Lemar TV (Afghanistan), Nine Network and Fox Sports (Australia), Super Sport (South Africa), BTV (Bangladesh), CMC (Caribbean), Asian TV Network (Canada), Eurosport (Europe), Sky Sports (United Kingdom and Ireland), DD Sports and Star Sports (India, Nepal and Sri Lanka), Sky Sport (New Zealand), PTV Sports (Pakistan), ESPN (United States)
Live Stream: Sky Go (United Kingdom)
Weather: The Weather Channel is forecasting a fine and sunny day reaching 27 degrees Celsius that will be perfect for the playing conditions at Eden Park.
Overview
Separating Australia and New Zealand is the Tasman Sea, a stretch of water approximately 2,000 kilometres in width that, in this World Cup, has felt considerably smaller.
Yet, though the countries are viewed as close neighbours, the divide is still relatively vast—the distance between Australia and New Zealand is roughly double the length of Britain.
And, for the majority of their histories, the gulf between the countries in cricketing terms has been just as large—Australia, for long periods, the game's dominant force; New Zealand the often-forgotten side in cricket's second tier.
But not anymore.
Now, they're peers. Rivals. Co-hosts. Co-favourites.
In a scenario that might have seemed unlikely as little as 12 months ago, Saturday's clash in Auckland looks set to be the match of the World Cup's group phase.
And Australia know it.
Indeed, the biggest indication that Australia view New Zealand as a genuine threat has come from the words emanating from the Australian camp in the buildup to Saturday's encounter.
"If we bowl well to him [Brendon McCullum], we'll create the pressure and he'll have a brain explosion," David Warner said of the Black Caps' captain, per Brydon Coverdale of ESPN Cricinfo.
Days earlier, Australia coach Darren Lehmann had fired his own shots at McCullum.
"He took the game on and he certainly does that, he plays a high-risk game, but there's a bit of a difference between 135 kph and 145 to 150 kph coming at him," Lehmann told Adelaide radio station 5AA, per Daniel Brettig of ESPN Cricinfo, after McCullum's extravagant innings against England.
The message: it doesn't count until you do it against us.
But here's the thing: Australia don't throw verbal barbs at anyone. If you're one of world cricket's lesser teams, they don't bother.
Instead, the mind games and pre-match taunts are all saved for those that Australia perceive as their rivals. In the last decade, that's been England, South Africa and India; not New Zealand.
However, the shots fired across the Tasman from Australia in recent days suggest the dynamic has changed. A lot.
Though they've enjoyed a strong run themselves, the men in green and gold will have noticed the blistering form of the team across the divide in New Zealand: three straight wins at the World Cup and eight wins from their last nine games overall (none of them close), all achieved with an explosive batting lineup and one of the world's best new-ball pairings.
Saturday, therefore, is a meeting between the world's No. 1 side and the outfit that's closing in on them at the most rapid rate of all.
It's the match of the group stage.
After the shots directed his way from Warner and Lehmann, it will be fascinating to watch McCullum in action at Eden Park.
At a ground with incredibly small boundaries, the New Zealand captain could be impossible to stop if he gets going at the top of the order—a situation Australia will desperately want to avoid.
It means the visitors are likely to deliver an early onslaught in the opening overs of the New Zealand innings, with Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and possibly Pat Cummins ready to charge in and, as Lehmann suggested, show McCullum the difference between 135 and 150 kph.
One suspects neither party will back down.
For the visitors, the most intriguing matter to monitor will be the presence of Michael Clarke.
Since suffering a severe hamstring injury in the first Test against India in Adelaide in early December, the only match practice the Australian captain has seen has come in World Cup warm-up games and grade cricket in Sydney—hardly the ideal preparation for a crunch World Cup encounter with a red-hot New Zealand in Auckland.
As such, the washout in Brisbane for the scheduled meeting with Bangladesh was a big blow for Clarke.
Now, he'll enter the cauldron that will be Eden Park on Saturday with little form, little match fitness and an array of question marks hanging over him.
