James Griffin: Do nice guys finish last?

We were, by far, the most loved team in the Cricket World Cup. Photo / AP

So while the evil Australians in their unflattering yellow outfits defeated the courageous Black Caps in the final of the Cricket World Cup, it has been generally accepted that we were, by far, the most loved team on the MCG that day.

To this the Australians would undoubtedly say something along the lines of, "Yeah, mate, but who won the actual trophy, eh?" (I will leave it to individual readers to fill in the missing traditional Australian expletives from this sentence.) All of which raises, yet again, the perennial question: "Do nice guys finish last?"

Of course in this case we were runners-up, not last, because England was last, but the theory of the question definitely remains in play. Are we, New Zealand and New Zealanders, for the most part, simply too nice for our own good - or even to win Cricket World Cups?

For starters, in contemplating this question for the ages, the concept of what is or isn't "nice" is clearly subjective. To grandmothers all over this nation, Richie McCaw is a nice boy, as well as being a champion and a leader of men. To an English crowd, primarily drunken boors high on their own sense of privilege, gathered at Twickenham of an afternoon, he is evil incarnate every time he touches the ball, or even when he doesn't touch the ball, or even when he simply breathes. Despite the fact that everyone knows grandmothers are always right and should never be argued with, the scientific evidence still does rather point in the direction of niceness being subjective.

But being not nice is clearly much less subjective, if the case of the recent hoo-ha over The X Factor is to be believed, wherein two judges of dubious judging quality managed to hurdle New Zealand's boundaries of niceness. Given that The X Factor is a show that begins with a premise not unlike bullying (let's all laugh at the deluded people who audition for the show) and is famous for its not-nice judges (starting with Simon Cowell and working downwards), it is quite a feat that the Killing Moons were capable of finding the line within that show and stepping over it.

And step over it they most clearly did. And it turned out that the line was somewhere around something to do with stitching faces on to other faces. And the nation rose up to tell them "this is not the New Zealand way". And lo, they became ex-X judges, leaving Stan (who is generally regarded as the nicest man on the planet) to fly the flag for the nicest series of The X Factor in X Factor history. This is The X Factor New Zealand-style, where the most contentious issue is whether Shelton actually owns any shirts with sleeves. And so it will come to pass that long after the winner of the 2015 iteration of The X Factor New Zealand-style has been forgotten, the series will be remembered as the one where those judges (their names also long forgotten if there is a God) were kicked off the show for not being nice.

Which, believe it or not, brings us all the way back to cricket and the MCG on Sunday, March 29, 2015 where, yes, Australia defeated New Zealand to win their 5th World Cup, their 4th in the last five tournaments. Sure there will be those - cricket statisticians and Australians - who will remember this fact, but for at least four million people, when they recall the 2015 Cricket World Cup, they will remember the team who played with courage and flair and talent and, above all else, who played in the spirit of the game and were as generous in defeat as they were in victory.

The iconic image of CWC 2015 is not a bunch of blokes dressed like bananas holding aloft the trophy, it is the photo of Grant Elliott and Dale Steyn at the end of one of the greatest one-day cricket matches of all time.

So do nice guys always finish last? On the scoreboard, on that day at the MCG, most certainly yes; the nice guys that day lost to a team light years below them in grace and class. But in the long term, in the hearts and souls of all those watching who weren't natives of the Lucky Country, there was only one team in it at the end of the day - and they were wearing black (with some blue bits).

Therefore, the correct answer can only be that we seized the moral high ground, therefore we won.

It would be traditional to now say something along the lines of "so suck on that Australia" but, because I am a New Zealander, I am too nice to say anything like that.

(Doesn't stop me thinking it though.)