World cup 2015 Australia vs New Zealand

You know where the photo is from and maybe you also know what this post is about. But it's a little more than that, trust me.

This is a photo of Brad Haddin from the 2015 World Cup Final against New Zealand. Although Australia won the match comprehensively, a lot of

Haddin's actions on the day left a bitter taste in the mouth. Throughout New Zealand's innings, he was in the ears of the Kiwi batters, particularly Grant Elliot, who had played the knock of his life in the previous match and won people over with a gesture of a lifetime

by extending his hand to a crestfallen Dale Steyn after hitting him for the winning six in the semi-final.

Elliot reprised his knock from the game in the final too but this time in tougher conditions and against a very different opposition. He fell for 83 out of a team's total

of 183. But Haddin peppered him with words even on his way back to the pavilion. After winning the World Cup, in an inebriated state next morning, he would go on to say that the Kiwis deserved it in an interview to a radio station. But why? A very interesting reason is given in

in his autobiography that released in 2016.

Haddin wrote, "From the moment we’d arrived in the country, the Kiwi players had been really nice to us. Too nice. They were calling up guys on our team asking if they needed anything organised for them while they were in the country.
They spoke nicely about us in the media. On game day when both sides walked out for the anthem they greeted us like old friends, chatting away and asking us what we’d been up to during our stay. They were even nice to us as we went out to bat. The whole thing felt very odd."
As many would remember, when the two teams first met in the World Cup, Australia lost the match by 1 wicket after they had managed to put only 151 on the board. After the match, Haddin writes that he felt the 'niceness' of the Kiwis was a deliberate ploy to throw them off.
The team's sports psychologist, Michael Lloyd also agreed with his theory.
About the final, Haddin wrote, "Leading into the final, where the two sides would face off again, I brought it up with the team and asked if anyone else had felt uncomfortable in the earlier match.
It turned out everyone had. They had got us to change the brand of cricket we played and as a result they’d beaten us. None of us wanted that to happen again."
And that's why we saw what we saw on the field in the Final from Haddin and his mates.
But, wait. Was there actually a
ploy by the Kiwis to be 'too nice' and to unsettle the Aussies? They were nice even when the match was lost. When Michael Clarke got out, McCullum was the first to go up to congratulate him on finishing a glorious career. A similar courtesy wasn't extended to Daniel Vettori who
was also playing his final match for New Zealand. As the Aussies lifted the trophy for the 5th time, the Kiwi players stood and applauded. McCullum was the last to leave. So, was there actually a ploy at all? Well, there are no clear answers but there is something that McCullum
wrote in his autobiography that might hold the answer to the question.
Now, the World Cup Final took place almost a 100 days after an event that shook the cricketing world. On 27th November, Australia's Phil Hughes passed away after getting hit by a bouncer in a Shield match.
New Zealand were locked in a battle against Pakistan in Sharjah when they got the news and from McCullum's account, had it not been for the commitment to the broadcasters, the team wouldn't have continued the match since everyone was so broken by the news of cricket claiming the
life of a fellow cricketer. They went on to win the Test, their first win over Pakistan in Asia in 18 years. McCullum himself contributed with a scintillating 202. But the match would go on to have a larger significance for him and how he played his cricket because of what it had
coincided with. In McCullum's words, "If you go back over the tapes of my finest moments with the bat pre-Sharjah and post Sharjah, there’s a big difference. Before Sharjah, I’d celebrate with the best of them, get quite emotional,
wave the bat about, maybe do the odd dance, look a bit like David Warner on Valium. But after Sharjah, my moments of success were acknowledged in a more muted way, because what Phil’s death has taught me is that these successes don’t really matter.
What matters is that you’re out there with your mates, able to play. Value every minute and honour the game that allows you to do it. That permeates everything we do now. After the news came through that Phil had died, and we were told we had to complete that test, there was no
way we were going to sledge anyone. We arrived at that point because of what happened to Phil and it cut pretty deep. So why should we go back to sledging now? It’s not about being ‘nice guys’ or trying to curry favour with the media, it’s actually about
being honest about why we’re out there."
Now, these are their accounts and I don't know what's the exact truth but McCullum's account seems to suggest that their niceness to the Aussies was born out of a terrible tragedy that had made the whole cricketing world see cricket
differently. Is it possible that Haddin and Co. misunderstood the entire thing?
And isn't it wild to think that Haddin's unpleasant actions in the Final were a response to something that the Kiwis were doing in response to a tragedy that had struck one of his mates?

Photo in the first tweet clicked by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Photo in the second tweet clicked by Hannah Peters/Getty Images

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