Gavin Larsen: What he said, really meant and definitely didn’t

Gavin Larsen

What he said:

“What we did was in the first game of the tournament, we were playing the Yellow Team. We just called them the Yellow Team. We played Zimbabwe at Napier, we called them the Red Team. Pakistan was the Green Team. That made us focus on what we needed to do as a team to beat that Yellow Team. That took away some of the emotion.”

Former New Zealand seam-up bowler, Gavin Larsen, reveals the psychological mindset behind the extraordinary performance of the Kiwis team at the ’92 World Cup.

He said:

“We had some good experience in the team. A lot of guys had played a lot of cricket domestically and for New Zealand. It wasn’t a young, raw, immature team. First and foremost, there was some mental strength across the individuals in the team. The other thing that I do remember is how Martin Crowe insisted that we depersonalised each of the teams. New Zealand has played Australia in the past and you can get caught in the Trans-Tasman hype – playing the old enemy from across the ditch.”

Russell and Martin Crowe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What he really meant:

 “We, of course, were the All-Blacks. It wasn’t that hard a stretch to color code our opponents. And we certainly made them eat Crowe.”

What he definitely didn’t:

 “How’s that for Emotional Intelligence?”