Is it a blue? Is it a Donnybrook? No, it’s a stoush

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Auckland

BLUE. Stoush. Donnybrook. Remember these words and keep them handy whenever SA are playing New Zealand or Australia.

A blue, a Kiwi explained on Monday, is Antipodean slang for “a tiff with your spouse; nothing too serious and all sorted out with an apology”.

Not so a Donnybrook, which involves punching, kicking, biting, and probably the police. It is named for Donnybrook Fair in Dublin, where brawls were almost as common as three-leaf clover.

And a stoush? Here’s New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum with a helpful example: “We had a bit of a stoush with SA four years ago.”

The New Zealanders got under the SA players’ skin during their 2011 World Cup quarter-final in Dhaka. Faf du Plessis and Kyle Mills had to be separated by the umpires, and Graeme Smith’s team, who were chasing just 222 to win, crashed and burned for 172.

“But I think both teams have grown up immensely in that time,” McCullum said. “That was not how we want to play the game. I think other teams will do that sort of thing, but for us we’re not good enough to have that as our focus. We need to make sure that we’re respectful of the game and go about our work.”

AB de Villiers wasn’t so sure: “New Zealand are normally a gentlemanly team to play against but sometimes they do come out and go for what they want, and we’re expecting that.”

And, De Villiers didn’t have to say, it was up to him and his players to not have their focus shifted from the primary objective: winning.

“I don’t like to get involved vocally too much. It’s all about the confidence and the body language. I think I say enough with the way I go about my business as a player, and I’m expecting the team to do the same.”

But while questions on SA’s history of mental fragility have become standard at this World Cup, the fact that New Zealand have lost all six of the semi-finals they have reached in previous tournaments has escaped scrutiny.

Australia and India, who meet in the semi-finals in Sydney on Thursday, have between them accounted for nine of the 20 finalists’ berths in the history of the World Cup. Playing in the showpiece is nothing new for them.

But it would be for their opponents - who, given both their track records, could get to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday by dint of the other’s failure to launch in the semi.

McCullum thought not: “I don’t think so. Both teams are playing a different brand of cricket than we’ve seen over the last while - an aggressive, entertaining style.

“They are trying to win key moments rather than not lose them. I’d expect that the team that is able to handle the crunch situations the best will come out on top, but I would expect that the margin won’t be too big.

“I guess we’ll have one team that has never made it to the final celebrating. The others will, I guess, take it in their stride.”

No, they won’t.