New Zealand Cricket Team

What will rankle the Black Caps is their inability to get over the final hurdle. While neighbours Australia have five World Cup titles to their name, New Zealand have none.

They came agonizingly close at the last edition, at the 2019 World Cup, where they lost to England in the final. This, despite the best efforts of skipper Kane Williamson, who was the team’s highest run-getter with 578 runs at an average of 82.57, he racked up two centuries and two fifties over the course of the tournament for which he was adjudged the Player of the Tournament.

Now, with the 2023 edition in touching distance, Williamson is struggling to get fit after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) while fielding for the Gujarat Titans.

Besides 2019, New Zealand were also in the World Cup in the 2015 edition where they heartbreakingly lost to Australia, with whom they were co-hosting the event that year.

New Zealand have reached the semi-finals of the World Cup on four other occasions: 1975 (where they lost to eventual champions West Indies), 1979 (defeated by England), 1999 (lost to Pakistan) and 2007 (lost to Sri Lanka).

They are one of those teams that always start the World Cup as a threat, but end the event with heartbreaks."