March 9, 2026 • 11 mins
The Black Caps know the next opportunity to win a white-ball World Cup will come along quickly, but are frustrated they've let another slip.
It's now five in the last 11 years the Black Caps have reached the big dance but been unable to hoist the silverware.
Former Black Cap Scott Styris joined Piney to discuss why the Kiwi side can't seem to reach the threshold.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildegrave
from News Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
ZEDB have won the T twenty Cricket World Cup, beating
the Black Caps by ninety six runs. In this morning's final,
Perkern and.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
The deck.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mine's wicket goes down and it's all done.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Actually it's India Wedler the World.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Cup by ninety six runs. Since twenty fifteen, New Zealand
has lost two fifty over World Cup finals, a Champions
Trophy final and now two T twenty World Cup finals.
So how do we go from perennial contenders to champions?
Scott Styrus played two hundred and fifty games of cricket
(00:53):
for New Zealand across the three formats, more than five
hundred and fifty games of white ball cricket in a
career which stretched over two decades. Since retirement, he's become
one of the most respected cricket analysts and commentators in
the world and he joins us now, Scott, thanks for
your time. New Zealand, as I say, have now lost
five white ball finals in the last eleven years. Is
(01:15):
this just a nature of white ball cricket or is
there something else stopping the Black caps from getting across
the line.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Oh that's a million dollar question, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
And look, I think there's an element to that where
everything does happen on the day. But you see that
in a lot of the big sports around the world,
don't you, where it's about turning up and delivering in
the biggest moments, and you know, as individual players setting
their legacy from that and as a team, solidifying.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Your place in history.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
And you know, I think what this team has achieved
a tall format since let's say twenty fifteen. It's been
a sustained period of success for this group. But that's
the one area, isn't it the white ball finals where
they haven't been able to quite deliver upon the skills
and abilities that they have. That will probably be a
(02:07):
little disappointing for those players once they finished and hang
them up.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
This is another million dollar question. Then why do you
think that is? Why haven't they been able to deliver
on those on those or in those big moments.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, that one I'm not quite sure the answer for.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
And I say that because I know thinking back on
my career and for us it was semi finals for example,
that we just kept falling short on and by the
time we got to my third World Cup, you know,
it's almost changed changed attitude and said, right, I'm going
to go after the game. I'm not going to finish
and think what if. And that's the worst thing I
(02:42):
think as a professional sports person is that you finish
a particular event or your sport what doesn't really matter
what it is, and all of a sudden you think,
if I'd only just tried whatever it is, you know,
I could perhaps put my But we'll sit back and think,
you know, I gave it everything and I got beaten by.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
A better team or somebody had their date.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
But that'll be the one part, particularly from last night,
with the way the game ended. The quality their performances
have been exceptional throughout and it's not the first tournament
where that's happened. And yet they get to the big
dance and all of a sudden probably sitting in that
dressing room afterwards, thinking well, we weren't at the races today,
and that's the part that we'll eat away at them.
(03:22):
How they fix that, I don't know, because it brings
about more pressure upon yourself. There's a lot of I
guess tongue in cheek is the probably way I look
at it, with South Africa being a side that never
delivers when the pressure's on and the cricket since New
Zealand's possibly got that little mantle to get past now
due to the quantity of finals that they've been in.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Interesting you talk about that semi final barrier and how
it took you two or three tournaments to form a
good strategy. I mean some of our semi final performances
in the last ten years. I've been amazing, beating South
Africa twenty fifteen, Grant Elliot had in that sixth India
twenty nineteen, even South Africa and this Tea twenty World
Cup Scott, what a performance. Is it possible that these
(04:06):
players are still, you know, coming along their journey and
their barrier is the final rather than the semi final
that it was when you were playing.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah, look, I totally agree with that. The problem they
have is this is an older New Zealand side. How
many more opportunities they will get I don't know, but
you know, you don't want to get to the point
where your skills start diminishing and take away from those
quality performance. But all of a sudden you've got the
experience of saying, you know what, I'm going to grab
the game by the scruff of the neck and try
(04:36):
and be the.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Hero if you like, because that's what White Wool cricket does.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
It allows you to be the hero on the day,
as Fan Allen did in that semi final where he
just took the game away. I know he had obviously
some good performances from other players too, but he just said,
jump on my back, I'm going to carry the side,
and he did it brilliantly. And you know, you can
go out with best intentions and all of that and
keep your head in those moments and all the cliches
(05:00):
you hear about, but it's still about making sure that
you grab the game and when you get a chance
to make it, you make yourself the hero of the
day that you take that. And that's the unfortunate part
is I'm not sure that that's happened with the side,
which you know, I think it would have really cemented
their place not only as our best era of cricket,
which I firmly believe it has been, but also on
(05:20):
the world stage, just with the consistency and the quality
of their performances which have been so good for ten years.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I heard Simon Dulsain commentary today that sometimes these days
too much stock is placed in data and there's amountain
of it available. I'm sure finding matchups bowling a certain
way based on what the numbers are telling you and
things like that, rather than just doing what you feel
out in the middle. Does Simon Dell have a point there.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I'm more on the data side, so I'm gonna I'm
going to disagree with Dolly, but there's a couple of
reasons for that. I still believe you're right that there
is and he's right that there is a place for
feel you conditions may not be what they are the
game situation, which is always a big one in cricket
where you have to play to the situation. You can
not simply go out and go all guns blazing, will
(06:09):
be you know, conservative and try and get a score
that you think on any given day.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Might be might win. You're the game.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
You know there is a place for data, and you
only have to look at other sports. Cricket has been
one that has taken a little longer to perhaps become
fully professional, and you see that in the I p L,
for example. The more money that's involved in a sport,
the more accountability people want. And the Mumbai Indians, for example,
(06:36):
in the I p L have a back room analytics
staff of one hundred people and they're coutting every game
and you know, it may get to the point where
you see the captains almost like the NFL quarterback. They
have that little patch on their arm with all the
plays that that that they want to run, all the
matchups or situations of games, and you know, I know
(06:58):
they go down to the detail of for example, one
that that we've talked about in commentary over there in
the subcontinent. You know, after three top all, what does
Glenn Max will do? And then they try and cut
that off. So you know, they are really diving into
the analytics side of things and trying to find trends
amongst players, whether we battle ball of what they do
(07:19):
to try and give themselves an advantage. And at the
end of the day, that's what analytics analytics is. It's
just giving yourself an advantage, whether it comes off or not.
And so I do believe that there is a place
for that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So interesting. Our two best performance with a bat at
this tournament by some distance, Tim Seifert and thin Allen,
both uncontracted T twenty specialists. Is that part of the
answer moving forward as well? Is that something we're likely
to see more and more of in big tournaments?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I probably think so.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
We yet to see what if anything comes of this
NZ twenty, because you know, there's been a lot of
media around that and what place and what that can
do for cricket, whether it keeps some of those players
back in New Zealand, particularly during our summer.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I don't think it's any coincidence that a player's skills improve.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
When you only practice one version of the game.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
You know, you think back to the say the seventies,
really before really one day cricket was around, players only
had to practice their test skills and it became a
lot easier. But when you are chopping and changing every
single week between what is required, you can understand why
players perhaps don't master one in particular. And the real
king of that, I think is Chris Gale when he
(08:37):
gave away the other versions of the game and he
just became the premier player in T twenty cricket around
the world because those were the skills that he needed
to practice and master and he certainly did that, so
it doesn't surprise me that Tim and Fanellen are dominating
world tournaments and taking that form through to New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Such interesting times, really thought provoking stuff. As always, Scott,
thanks so much for joining us tonight, Jess, thanks no,
thank you. Scott Cyrus thatap with his thoughts on the
Black Caps lost to India this morning in the T
twenty Cricket World Cup Finals. But there from Scott Styrus
is really interesting to me. Specialists and as he said,
(09:13):
when players only had test cricket to practice and prepare for,
players became better at Test cricket with three formats. Now
players who play all three have their attention and their
preparation time divided. Doesn't it stand to reason that if
you specialize in one format, you're going to be better
(09:37):
at that format. In T twenty cricket, where you can
earn a living traveling the world playing franchise cricket, exposing
yourself to a variety of conditions and the best T
twenty players, Surely we need to look more and more
at specialists for World Cups in particular. In fact, for
(09:58):
World Cups only, I would say bilateral series. I guess
on a case by case basis, if somebody is available
to play, they might and play. But for World Cups
it has to be the way forward. And to be fair,
we did it this time, didn't we. Fin Allen, tim Seifert,
neither of them. Centrally contracted, Lockey Ferguson no central contract,
(10:21):
Devin Conway no central contract, Jimmy Nisham no central contract,
ish Sody no central contract, all members of this T
twenty World Cup squad. So this is the way where heading,
isn't it? For World Cups? And in T twenty World Cups,
which you hold every two years? Why is it such
(10:42):
an unpalatable idea to say to guys like Finn Allen,
tim Seifert and the others, go and play your franchise cricket.
Focus only on that, because that's your bread and butter.
That's now how you are earning a living by traveling
the world and playing T twenty, And we would love
to have you play World Cups for us. And World
(11:03):
Cups always appear in a window where there's no friend
Josh Cricket like this one has, and then there's centrally
contracted players who play test matches and fifty over stuff.
Some of them might also play T twenty rightch and Revender,
a good example, will probably continue to play all three formats,
but I think more and more specialists are the way
(11:24):
to go when it comes to T twenty.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
For more from sports talk, listen live to news Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildegrave
from News Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
ZEDB have won the T twenty Cricket World Cup, beating
the Black Caps by ninety six runs. In this morning's final,
Perkern and.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
The deck.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mine's wicket goes down and it's all done.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Actually it's India Wedler the World.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Cup by ninety six runs. Since twenty fifteen, New Zealand
has lost two fifty over World Cup finals, a Champions
Trophy final and now two T twenty World Cup finals.
So how do we go from perennial contenders to champions?
Scott Styrus played two hundred and fifty games of cricket
(00:53):
for New Zealand across the three formats, more than five
hundred and fifty games of white ball cricket in a
career which stretched over two decades. Since retirement, he's become
one of the most respected cricket analysts and commentators in
the world and he joins us now, Scott, thanks for
your time. New Zealand, as I say, have now lost
five white ball finals in the last eleven years. Is
(01:15):
this just a nature of white ball cricket or is
there something else stopping the Black caps from getting across
the line.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Oh that's a million dollar question, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
And look, I think there's an element to that where
everything does happen on the day. But you see that
in a lot of the big sports around the world,
don't you, where it's about turning up and delivering in
the biggest moments, and you know, as individual players setting
their legacy from that and as a team, solidifying.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Your place in history.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
And you know, I think what this team has achieved
a tall format since let's say twenty fifteen. It's been
a sustained period of success for this group. But that's
the one area, isn't it the white ball finals where
they haven't been able to quite deliver upon the skills
and abilities that they have. That will probably be a
(02:07):
little disappointing for those players once they finished and hang
them up.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
This is another million dollar question. Then why do you
think that is? Why haven't they been able to deliver
on those on those or in those big moments.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, that one I'm not quite sure the answer for.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
And I say that because I know thinking back on
my career and for us it was semi finals for example,
that we just kept falling short on and by the
time we got to my third World Cup, you know,
it's almost changed changed attitude and said, right, I'm going
to go after the game. I'm not going to finish
and think what if. And that's the worst thing I
(02:42):
think as a professional sports person is that you finish
a particular event or your sport what doesn't really matter
what it is, and all of a sudden you think,
if I'd only just tried whatever it is, you know,
I could perhaps put my But we'll sit back and think,
you know, I gave it everything and I got beaten by.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
A better team or somebody had their date.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
But that'll be the one part, particularly from last night,
with the way the game ended. The quality their performances
have been exceptional throughout and it's not the first tournament
where that's happened. And yet they get to the big
dance and all of a sudden probably sitting in that
dressing room afterwards, thinking well, we weren't at the races today,
and that's the part that we'll eat away at them.
(03:22):
How they fix that, I don't know, because it brings
about more pressure upon yourself. There's a lot of I
guess tongue in cheek is the probably way I look
at it, with South Africa being a side that never
delivers when the pressure's on and the cricket since New
Zealand's possibly got that little mantle to get past now
due to the quantity of finals that they've been in.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Interesting you talk about that semi final barrier and how
it took you two or three tournaments to form a
good strategy. I mean some of our semi final performances
in the last ten years. I've been amazing, beating South
Africa twenty fifteen, Grant Elliot had in that sixth India
twenty nineteen, even South Africa and this Tea twenty World
Cup Scott, what a performance. Is it possible that these
(04:06):
players are still, you know, coming along their journey and
their barrier is the final rather than the semi final
that it was when you were playing.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah, look, I totally agree with that. The problem they
have is this is an older New Zealand side. How
many more opportunities they will get I don't know, but
you know, you don't want to get to the point
where your skills start diminishing and take away from those
quality performance. But all of a sudden you've got the
experience of saying, you know what, I'm going to grab
the game by the scruff of the neck and try
(04:36):
and be the.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Hero if you like, because that's what White Wool cricket does.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
It allows you to be the hero on the day,
as Fan Allen did in that semi final where he
just took the game away. I know he had obviously
some good performances from other players too, but he just said,
jump on my back, I'm going to carry the side,
and he did it brilliantly. And you know, you can
go out with best intentions and all of that and
keep your head in those moments and all the cliches
(05:00):
you hear about, but it's still about making sure that
you grab the game and when you get a chance
to make it, you make yourself the hero of the
day that you take that. And that's the unfortunate part
is I'm not sure that that's happened with the side,
which you know, I think it would have really cemented
their place not only as our best era of cricket,
which I firmly believe it has been, but also on
(05:20):
the world stage, just with the consistency and the quality
of their performances which have been so good for ten years.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I heard Simon Dulsain commentary today that sometimes these days
too much stock is placed in data and there's amountain
of it available. I'm sure finding matchups bowling a certain
way based on what the numbers are telling you and
things like that, rather than just doing what you feel
out in the middle. Does Simon Dell have a point there.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I'm more on the data side, so I'm gonna I'm
going to disagree with Dolly, but there's a couple of
reasons for that. I still believe you're right that there
is and he's right that there is a place for
feel you conditions may not be what they are the
game situation, which is always a big one in cricket
where you have to play to the situation. You can
not simply go out and go all guns blazing, will
(06:09):
be you know, conservative and try and get a score
that you think on any given day.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Might be might win. You're the game.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
You know there is a place for data, and you
only have to look at other sports. Cricket has been
one that has taken a little longer to perhaps become
fully professional, and you see that in the I p L,
for example. The more money that's involved in a sport,
the more accountability people want. And the Mumbai Indians, for example,
(06:36):
in the I p L have a back room analytics
staff of one hundred people and they're coutting every game
and you know, it may get to the point where
you see the captains almost like the NFL quarterback. They
have that little patch on their arm with all the
plays that that that they want to run, all the
matchups or situations of games, and you know, I know
(06:58):
they go down to the detail of for example, one
that that we've talked about in commentary over there in
the subcontinent. You know, after three top all, what does
Glenn Max will do? And then they try and cut
that off. So you know, they are really diving into
the analytics side of things and trying to find trends
amongst players, whether we battle ball of what they do
(07:19):
to try and give themselves an advantage. And at the
end of the day, that's what analytics analytics is. It's
just giving yourself an advantage, whether it comes off or not.
And so I do believe that there is a place
for that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So interesting. Our two best performance with a bat at
this tournament by some distance, Tim Seifert and thin Allen,
both uncontracted T twenty specialists. Is that part of the
answer moving forward as well? Is that something we're likely
to see more and more of in big tournaments?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I probably think so.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
We yet to see what if anything comes of this
NZ twenty, because you know, there's been a lot of
media around that and what place and what that can
do for cricket, whether it keeps some of those players
back in New Zealand, particularly during our summer.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
I don't think it's any coincidence that a player's skills improve.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
When you only practice one version of the game.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
You know, you think back to the say the seventies,
really before really one day cricket was around, players only
had to practice their test skills and it became a
lot easier. But when you are chopping and changing every
single week between what is required, you can understand why
players perhaps don't master one in particular. And the real
king of that, I think is Chris Gale when he
(08:37):
gave away the other versions of the game and he
just became the premier player in T twenty cricket around
the world because those were the skills that he needed
to practice and master and he certainly did that, so
it doesn't surprise me that Tim and Fanellen are dominating
world tournaments and taking that form through to New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Such interesting times, really thought provoking stuff. As always, Scott,
thanks so much for joining us tonight, Jess, thanks no,
thank you. Scott Cyrus thatap with his thoughts on the
Black Caps lost to India this morning in the T
twenty Cricket World Cup Finals. But there from Scott Styrus
is really interesting to me. Specialists and as he said,
(09:13):
when players only had test cricket to practice and prepare for,
players became better at Test cricket with three formats. Now
players who play all three have their attention and their
preparation time divided. Doesn't it stand to reason that if
you specialize in one format, you're going to be better
(09:37):
at that format. In T twenty cricket, where you can
earn a living traveling the world playing franchise cricket, exposing
yourself to a variety of conditions and the best T
twenty players, Surely we need to look more and more
at specialists for World Cups in particular. In fact, for
(09:58):
World Cups only, I would say bilateral series. I guess
on a case by case basis, if somebody is available
to play, they might and play. But for World Cups
it has to be the way forward. And to be fair,
we did it this time, didn't we. Fin Allen, tim Seifert,
neither of them. Centrally contracted, Lockey Ferguson no central contract,
(10:21):
Devin Conway no central contract, Jimmy Nisham no central contract,
ish Sody no central contract, all members of this T
twenty World Cup squad. So this is the way where heading,
isn't it? For World Cups? And in T twenty World Cups,
which you hold every two years? Why is it such
(10:42):
an unpalatable idea to say to guys like Finn Allen,
tim Seifert and the others, go and play your franchise cricket.
Focus only on that, because that's your bread and butter.
That's now how you are earning a living by traveling
the world and playing T twenty, And we would love
to have you play World Cups for us. And World
(11:03):
Cups always appear in a window where there's no friend
Josh Cricket like this one has, and then there's centrally
contracted players who play test matches and fifty over stuff.
Some of them might also play T twenty rightch and Revender,
a good example, will probably continue to play all three formats,
but I think more and more specialists are the way
(11:24):
to go when it comes to T twenty.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
For more from sports talk, listen live to news Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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