AHMEDABAD: There is no place for logic in a one-off shootout. Eighteen months of planning and 18000 excel sheets can safely be burned because it all comes down to a single moment. A few minutes. One error. Ten minutes of madness.
It's why the business end of tournaments do not follow set scripts or brackets. Scoring penalties was Roberto Baggio's thing, having converted more than a 100 of those during a career spanning over a decade. Yet, he missed a penalty and Brazil won the 1994 World Cup. 10 years of scientific evidence burned in a fraction of a second.
Closer home, India, against all logic and conventional wisdom, won the 2007 T20 World Cup. It's why most finales are, first and foremost, theatre. That sense of unpredictability, jeopardy. No second chances. Mahaul. An environment.
It's this mahaul that New Zealand want to capture and own in front of over 90,000 fans at the new Motera on Sunday. Another international captain has already shown it's possible to keep them quiet before breaking their hearts. Mitchell Santner, the Kiwi captain wants to do the same. "I wouldn't mind breaking a few hearts to lift the trophy for once," he said in the pre-match press conference.
"At the end of the day, it's a one-off shootout. We know that."
They should know the value of a shootout more than any other team in the history of the ICC. India will know that too. The Black Caps, in their history, have won two global titles. Both of them came against the odds with India on the receiving end (2000 Champions Trophy final and 2021 World Test Championship final). They also beat them in the semifinal of the 2019 World Cup. In isolation, these things may not mean a lot but it will give them the belief and confidence that it can be done.
They will have taken a lot of heart and gumption from the way they dismantled South Africa in the semifinal in Kolkata. It's also their clearest path to global gold. If Finn Allen and Tim Seifert can do some mischief in the powerplay, it will set them up.
They also have another path to a possible coronation come Sunday night. The right-arm fingerspinner turning the ball from left to right. In elite cricket, this type of spinner, especially in this format, has been facing an existential crisis for years because what they offer is uncool. The specialist offspinner is the pleb of the T20 world. They are not wristies. There is no mystery. Meh.
But this Indian team has developed an affliction to losing their wickets to offies. The southpaw-heavy line-up has already lost some of their fear factor thanks to an assortment of bowlers — it's some assortment as it contains Salman Agha, Gerhard Erasmus, Sikandar Raza, Aiden Markram and Will Jacks — who became genuine wicket-takers. In all, the Indian team strikes at 120 against this bowling type at the World Cup. Surely a statistical quirk but it's a quirk that the Black Caps will most definitely test as they have two bowlers who turn the ball from left to right and they are both part-timers.
Enter Glenn Phillips and Cole McConchie. The latter is the more interesting case. He's the match-up player most T20I teams employ these days. Against South Africa, he bowled the second over with the express purpose of trying to remove one left-hander. He removed both Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton and didn't bowl again. 1-0-9-2. Thanks for coming, see you in the final.
It's a place the Kiwis have seen a lot of in global finals. Sunday will be their fifth attempt at winning (they have lost each of the previous four) finally. And Santner would be more than happy to play the pantomime — a role this country and this team historically do not — if it gives them the gold they crave.
"It's easy to say it's just another game, but everyone knows it's probably not. But I think the way you go about it has to be the same," Santner said.
They will stick to their processes, do their own thing and not let the situation get to them. And if luck favours them, they will look to tap into the unpredictability and magic of the one-game shootout.