Kiwis confident of winning final - Vettori

Ranjan Anandappa reporting from South Africa

Daniel Vettori and Grant Elliot took New Zealand from the wilderness in to the Promised land when they qualified to meet Australia in the Champions Trophy fnal beating Pakistan by five wickets in the second semi final played at the Wanderers

New Zealand has not won a major world cricket title since their ICC Championship win in 2000 in Kenya, beating India through the heroics of Chris Cairns, and the confident Kiwi captain feels that it was the right time to break the sequence of losses and enter the winning stream.

“We have lost some key players, Elliot’s playing was also in doubt, but he managed to play and played an impressive innings. His Innings was full of character, he had an injury, but he concealed it, and the team is proud the way he played,” said the New Zealand captain.

“The key for us is we got to worry about our own game plan, we know Australia is going to play well and they have great players. Considering our last three games we are in with a chance of winning.”

He said that in the game against Pakistan tactics really worked out, particularly the way the guys bowled, Shane Bond and Ian Butler put a lot pressure on Pakistan. It was same with the batting, I feel because we restricted them to 233 we just cruised a little bit, but when we needed a little bit of impetus we got it from Ross Taylor and Grant Elliot.

Meanwhile the Australians conveyed a stiff message in their last outing against England. Last Friday as they looked ominous again and with Ricky Ponting around they still have a significant link with the past.. Captain Ricky Ponting in a post match press briefing said “To have Michael Clark and Nathan Bracken not take any part in the Champions Trophy at all and to have this group of relatively young players make it through to the final is a good achievement in itself. But we won’t be happy until we peak in the final”

“If you look at our side now, there aren’t many experienced guys around. At the last couple of World Cups we had a number of experienced guys around..What we always try and do is have a mix of youth and experience and that’s been a big thing for us in the World Cups in the last couple of campaigns.

And if you look at our side now with myself, Brett Lee, Mike Hussy being the more experienced players, the younger guys are learning and finding their feet at International level and doing a very good job” added Ponting.