Paul Ford: Days of miracle and wonder upon us

The Black Caps' wining form and blistering attack-minded approach have been the catalyst for the nation to become intoxicated with the team. Photo / Christine Cornege

Opinion

These are heady days. For Kiwi cricket fans, these may be the days of miracle and wonder that Newark opening batsman Paul Simon wrote about in The Boy in the Bubble.

They arrived right on time too: the halcyon days of yore traditionally begin in mid-December, when the European kingfisher boards its floating nest on the Aegean Sea.

In December Kane Williamson's New Zealand team were polishing off the nicknameless Pakistan in a one-day series in the UAE. Since then he's handed the reins back to the huge forearms of Brendon McCullum and we've clobbered Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Scotland, England, Australia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

The wins, coupled with the blistering attack-minded approach, have been the catalyst for the nation to become intoxicated with this team. It feels as if it has been a long time between drinks, especially at home.

How long? We founded the Beige Brigade last century and this is now uncharted territory in terms of the proliferation of widespread, optimistic support. (Tragically, the Beige Brigade's debut in 1999 coincided with a lost ODI home series to the men with the soapstone bird on their breast - Zimbabwe. If that was the nadir, we dare to dream that the zenith approaches.)

These days, everywhere the New Zealand team go they see the smiles and they hear: "Well done yesterday, guys" and "You bloody rippers!" and "Congratulations - keep going ... "

The Hesson/McCullum edition of the team is squeaky clean too - there are no distractions. We're talking about their cricketing feats, not their pub escapades or social media pugilism. The most interesting thing that has happened to the men in black hats is a bout of dysentery and a sore shoulder. And if things have the faintest whiff of a pre-fight fiasco, the cold-blooded, deadpan librarianism of Daniel Vettori is wheeled out to quench the media flames.

Of course, there have been memorable and galvanising moments over the past 16 years. On foreign soil the momentous series-levelling heart-stopper in Hobart in 2011 is hard to beat, and Shane Bond's destruction of Australia on their national day at Adelaide in 2002 made cricket lovers run hysterically on to the streets in their underpants. Effigies would have been burned in excitement, had they been available.

At home, indelibly etched memories include McCullum slashing Zaheer Khan wide of gully to move to 302, as his old man Stu clapped at the Basin, accompanied by thousands of Wellingtonians. This was a moment where cricket enchanted and the nation, if only for half an hour, watched one man.

But on home soil, team-focused optimism is a rare beast indeed.

Maybe only two cricketing occasions have truly reverberated well outside the boundaries of the nation's cricketing population.

I was in my orange cardigan and Stubbies when the ignominious underarm rolled out. The Chappell brothers' disgraceful performance put New Zealand cricket on the map, as Richie Benaud denounced the act: "It was. One of the worst things. I have. Ever seen. Done. On a cricket field."

And the second was that glorious record-breaking run of shock and awe in 1992, unravelled by a portly Pakistani from Multan who didn't care for the script of our fairytale.

As we imbibe from the fountain of cricketing goodness, it's worth remembering that six in a row is not even an unprecedented unbeaten streak of Cricket World Cup victories for New Zealand.

The 1992 team hold that record, their spanking of Australia sparking seven straight wins that finished with a Jones/Crowe masterclass pantsing of England at the Basin Reserve.

Another sobering thought is that we've had last-start losses against two teams at this World Cup: West Indies and South Africa. Both loom large in the 2015 Kiwi World Cup bubble.

• Paul Ford (@beigebrigade) is co-founder of the Beige Brigade and one-seventh of The Alternative Commentary Collective. He dares to dream.