Cricket: Black Caps aim to follow White Ferns

Bowler Claire Nicholson (left) and wicketkeeper Rebecca Rolls celebrate the last wicket. Photo / Getty Images

NZ has won the Cricket World Cup before — the White Ferns will never forget the day they beat Australia.

Four runs required off the last over. One wicket in hand. The world cup final up for grabs - against the mighty Australia. For a select group of Kiwis, the dream finish really did happen.

"The first thing I remember was throwing the ball up the air and then really regretting it as I never saw it again," says White Ferns wicket keeper Rebecca Rolls. She had just taken the catch that secured New Zealand's only cricket world cup triumph - the 2000 women's world cup held on the outskirts of Christchurch at Lincoln's Bert Sutcliffe Oval.

The women's game did - and still does - struggle to gain any traction with the national sporting consciousness. But, unlike a men's team that has never gone beyond the semifinal stage at the game's pinnacle event, our women have scaled the heights.

"We had our time in the sun," says then captain Emily Drumm, now a contract manager for Fuji Xerox.

Drumm believes the Black Caps have a good chance of emulating her champion side when the ICC World Cup bursts into life at Christchurch's Hagley Oval and across the ditch at the MCG on Saturday.

Crucially, like the women, the New Zealand men will have home advantage for much of the tournament, something Drumm describes as "like having a 12th player".

Certainly home advantage was big for the White Ferns in the 2000 final, when they toppled an all-powerful Australian side rated the hottest of favourites to take out the tournament.

After imperiously sweeping aside the Kiwis in the tournament's opening match, Australia progressed to the final undefeated. It was the fact that they hadn't truly been tested that made the Australians vulnerable in the final, the Kiwis believed. The Australian top order had piled on the runs in most games, denying the middle and lower order time at the crease. The Kiwis' total of 184 was well short of what they wanted but, if they could take a few early wickets, they believed Australia might just fold.

The Kiwis got the early wickets, but Aussie skipper Belinda Clark stubbornly refused to budge from the crease.

"She was like Rahul Dravid, The Wall, you could never get her out," recalls Rolls.

But when Ferns off-spinner Clare Nicholson bowled Clark for 91 with the Aussies still requiring 35 runs, it was game on. Heading into the final over, the Aussies required just four to win, but they were down to their last wicket.

"Haidee Tiffen was lining up to bowl until someone pointed out to Em that Clare Nicholson had another over," says Rolls.

"It was at that point where after this massive tournament and all this preparation that whatever is going to happen. It was actually quite calming. It was like 'bowl the ball and we'll see what happens'.

"It was a terrible ball, short and wide ... But thankfully Charmaine Mason nicked it. It was an enormous nick."

Standing up to the stumps, Rolls had no time to react. The ball would either stick or it wouldn't. It did, lodging in the very edge of the webbing of her glove.

Rolls, who also played soccer for New Zealand and is an investigator in the Serious Fraud Office, threw the ball high in the air in celebration. She's not sure what happened to it, but suspects it may have been pocketed by a son of the late Chris Doig, former NZ Cricket chief executive.

In true Kiwi style there was no real individual hero that day. No one scored many runs or claimed a bag of wickets. But the difference between success and failure, says Rolls, was probably Helen Watson's two brilliant run-outs.

For Drumm, the pride in the achievement has not faded. When her team pitches up to Eden Park for a reunion during the match between the Black Caps and Australia on February 28 the players will do so knowing they truly deserve to be there.