When a 'game' consumes a nation!

Without a doubt, for the past few months, a ’game’ has taken New Zealanders on an emotional roller coaster. We have experienced mind blowing highs and nail-biting finishes. Stories abound as to how people have coped with the ’stress of it all,’ from going off and baking rather than watch (Me!) or poking heads around the kitchen door, just to sneak a look at the screen, which was naturally on ‘mute!’ I am of course talking about the Cricket World Cup. New Zealanders have had one hell of a party and it wasn’t until last night, when we knew after the first ‘over,’ that things were not going to go our way! When one of our ‘favourite sons’ was bowled out, we knew that it would be all uphill and unless some sort of Australian collapse ensued, then we were doomed to be ‘bridesmaids, once again’ to our Aussie cousins. Such a position is one that we have coped with nay times in our sporting history. Our bigger, brash and very successful neighbour see it as a ‘natural state of things’ between our two nations. To them, it is what defines them and for us, knocking tem off the ‘cocky perches’ is a national past-time! Yes we do achieve the ‘almost impossible from time to time in a number of fields, not just on the sporting one. No doubt today, we will hear the call that we ‘have done ourselves proud,’ and we actually got to the WCC final, something we have never done, but we will always rue the day that we did not progress to the stage, the one in which we received the trophy, that we had so longed collectively dreamed about. Hell, we even had 1.2 billion new Citizens praying for us, willing us to win, in the form of India, amongst others! Victory was just not to be and today we wake up to another day ion the knowledge that we have been defeated, once again by our nemesis, Australia. We must acknowledge that we were well beaten, by a better team on the day, one that had gradually built during the tournament. Perhaps that victory we had over them in the early rounds, pushed them to retaliate---when it counted! New Zealand is just 4.5 million. We forget that at times, refusing to believe that a smaller population consigns us to some sort of subservience to the rest of the world. Kiwis know better and the family of nations knows that perhaps, more so than we do! The sound of the Kiwi anthem will be heard again on the world stage! Time now to reflect on what we have achieved of late, my fellow countrymen and women! www.authorneilcoleman.com