At 30 years of age, he would like to believe he still has lot of cricket inside him.The Brendon McCullum-led team penetrated through all the teams to progress to the final. He produced a decent performance in the 2015 World Cup where he scalped 15 wickets from nine games at an average of 31. However, his performances after that have been pathetic. He improved his performance in 2015 when he topped the list by scoring 547 runs from 9 matches. We will also look at some of the key players who may turn the tide in their team’s favour at any given moment.Martin Guptill(Photo: Martin Guptill/ Instagram)Post the Brendon McCullum era, Guptill has become an integral part of their success in the 50-overs format.New Zealands success in this mega tournament will depend a lot on Williamsons performance. How can we forget that the black caps were the runners-up of the 2015 World Cup?.However, if Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson gets injured, then Southee must step up. In 2003 the black cap’s journey was till the super sixes.The Kiwis were the first to declare their 15-member World Cup squad. However, among all formats it’s ultimately the ODI format wherein he has shined tremenduously.The Kiwis, time and again, have proved that they’ve in them to show they can progress all the way through the tournament.BattingThe Kiwis’ batting order is filled with openers like Guptill and Munro, who provide flying starts succeeded by Williamson, Taylor and Latham, who anchor the middle order.
Kane Williamson’s class and temperament made him the wall of the Kiwi squad.New Zealand has a knack of making it to the semifinals but they will most probably face England, Australia and India again in the knockouts and the finals if they reach that stage. During the last four years Guptill notched up nine of his 16 hundreds, and this states his consistency. Let’s not forget that he was the top run scorer during the 2015 World Cup, and also he scored a mammoth 237 not out against the West Indies. That was certainly his one of the great bowling spells in world cup history.In the 2011 World Cup, Taylor notched up 324 runs at an average of 64.Final Prediction Like every World Cup, in this year’s World Cup too New Zealand goes into the World Cup as one of the dark horses. Boult is fast, and accurate, and during the death overs he bowls accurate yorkers which makes him one lethal bowler. And, the batting is heavily dependent on Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor. Although, this time there’s no Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori and Grant Elliot, who were the de-facto players in the Kiwis’ success last time.In a career running above a decade, he has played 139 one-day internationals in which he has notched up 186 wickets. The 15-member squad is as follows:- Kane Williamson (captain), Martin Guptill, Henry Nicholls, Ross Taylor, Tom Latham, Colin Munro, Tom Blundell, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Jimmy Neesham, Ish Sodhi, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Tim Southee, Trent BoultSurprisingly, they decided to include Test debutant, Tom Blundell, who is yet to make his ODI debut.During the early 2017, Taylor amassed 15 half centuries and five centuries.Though Southee has a vast collection of deliveries, his late outswingers have caused the most damage to the batsmen facing him.Guptill has played in the last two editions of the world cup and scored 262 runs at an average of 43.