Is the MCG too big for the Black Caps to win on?

Wise judges, including ex-Australian opener Matthew Hayden, believe the result of Sunday’s World Cup final is a foregone conclusion because the New Zealand game is not suited to the wide expanses of the MCG.

The rationale is that New Zealand has enjoyed the luxury of playing all their matches to date at home, on postage stamp-sized grounds, and that their aggressive batting tactics, relying on a high percentage of boundaries, will come unstuck on the bigger ground.

It’s an easy assumption to make, and should New Zealand lose those pundits will be slapping themselves on the back in knowing, self-congratulation.

It’s also a theory which is simplistic and flawed.

Yes New Zealand have played all of their matches at home – that’s not unusual for a host nation. Yes, many of the New Zealand grounds are small, smaller than the MCG, but what relevance does that have for the final?

It is true that some of the sixes hit in this tournament by Brendon McCullum, Martin Guptill and others would not have been sixes if those matches had been on the MCG. But the question that really needs to be asked is… so what?

Those preliminary matches are all history. They were relevant at the time, for the match at hand, where both New Zealand and their opponents were faced with identical conditions.

Do these New Zealand batsmen go into the MCG final less confident because they know in their hearts that their stats are bloated and their form is falsely inflated by being gifted a few extra sixes? Surely not.

A quick check of playing conditions for the final confirms that Australia will be allowed to take 11 players onto the field. It also confirms that the pitch for the final will be 22 yards long.

In the opening powerplay Michael Clarke will set fields which will look remarkably similar to the fields set at any other ground. He will have the required number of catchers, and ring fielders saving one.

His bowling plan for McCullum will be fascinating, but whichever way he chooses to play it, he will still have only two fielders where he has the option to place them in different spots than he would if the final was at Eden Park.

Perhaps deep square-leg and tide third-man might be set 20 metres deeper, but what does that actually mean? McCullum simply hits it down their throat as if he didn’t know they were there?

Before the New Zealand versus Australia pool match at Eden Park, much was written and said about impact the small ground would have on the result, and the likelihood that the match would turn into a 350-plus run shootout.

What happened only reinforced that the result of a cricket match is ultimately determined by what happens within the critical 22 yards, not the outfield.

If the Australian bowling is in the friendly zone and the New Zealand batsmen on song, boundaries will be hit. Today’s modern bats and on-field boundary ropes will see to that.

Conversely, if Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson are spearing fast, swinging yorkers into the base of middle and leg then we won’t.

It’s not as if the MCG boundaries are an impenetrable 150 metres. Wags have noted this week that playing at the MCG didn’t stop Lance Cairns (without one of today’s super bats), hitting 6 sixes in a match in 1983, although he did need to use two hands on the bat for some of them.

Do the Black Caps fear playing Australia in Melbourne? Their most recent 50-over match at the MCG was in 2009, won by New Zealand by six wickets.

Their most recent Test match in Australia was in Hobart in 2011, again won by New Zealand.

Their most recent 50-over match anywhere against Australia? On February 27, won by New Zealand.

New Zealand’s most recent 50-over series away from home? In 2014 against Pakistan, won by New Zealand.

In today’s professional sport, playing away from home is not the disadvantage it once was. Anybody in a tipping comp, in any sport will attest to that.

All of which means nothing on Sunday, for these two teams, at this point in time. Quite simply, whoever bats, bowls and fields best on the day will win.

Finally, a quick word on the highlight of the second semi-final: an innovate TV graphic used to illustrate the reason for the dismissal of Suresh Raina, comparing the actual, surprisingly high bounce of the ball to the lower bounce of an Indian pitch, which Raina would be accustomed to.

I wasn’t aware that the TV production team has a bank of graphics showing the bounce, at various lengths, of pitches from all around the world. Which Indian pitch would that have been precisely?

The graphic also failed to factor in that Raina has been living in Australia, batting in Australian conditions, for months. If any bounce would surprise him now, it would surely be a low, ‘Indian’ bounce.

So can we look forward to a New Zealand batsman being bamboozled by extra bounce in Sunday’s final, and a graphic showing the actual path of the ball on the MCG pitch compared to the lower bounce of a New Zealand pitch, whatever that may be?

If, after all these years, you’re still trying to figure out what Tony Greig’s player comfort-meter was actually a measure of, then you’ll be delighted that this tool sets a new low mark for sheer stupidity.

Unless I’ve got Matthew Hayden wrong and what he was really trying to say was that New Zealand will struggle with the size of the MCG ‘bounce’, not the size of the ground!