New Zealand fans poked fun on March 27th at Matthew Hayden after the former Australian swashbuckling batsman suggested the Black Caps would be overawed by the huge dimensions of the MCG in the World Cup final on March 29th.
New Zealand go into the summit clash on a run of eight wins in eight games in the tournament but all of their matches have been played on their own, much smaller, grounds.
“There were a number of times in the semi-final where the New Zealand batsmen appeared to be hitting big balls, but they’d be getting caught three quarters of the way to the fence at the MCG,” Hayden wrote in his column for www.news.com.au.
“Let’s be honest, the size of Eden Park (in Auckland) is ridiculous. It shouldn’t be a cricket ground. If you can half throw it from the long off boundary to the opposite end it’s too small.”
Hayden’s comments led to an outburst of tongue-in-cheek responses from the Kiwi fans and the hashtag #mcgsobig trended on Twitter.
Some of the wittiest are as followed:
The #MCGsobig we’ve put our Search and Rescue teams on standby.#BacktheBlackCaps
— New Zealand Police (@nzpolice) March 27, 2015
This is amazing :’D @notnossy #MCGsobig #CWC15 pic.twitter.com/v2EWlykijM
— Silver (@Silverspider97) March 26, 2015
The 25 @BLACKCAPS 6s from qtr- & semi-final mapped on to the MCG. Top work, http://t.co/XzDKG070G5 #MCGsobig #CWC15 pic.twitter.com/NSeeF314zy
— Toby Manhire (@toby_etc) March 27, 2015
#MCGsobig that @parthiv9 would need a bike to travel from one end to the other. #AUSvNZ
— Rohit Sharma Bhakt (@Nicks103) March 27, 2015
#MCGsobig you can fit the Rugby World Cup, The Bledisloe Cup, The 4 Nations trophy, The NBL trophy and The Chappell Hadlee trophy in it…
— Andrew Mulligan (@Andrew_Mulligan) March 26, 2015
The #MCGsobig that we have games played on it simultaneously in @CricketJapan @CricketFiji @Cricket_PNG @CICricket @SamoaCricket
— ICC East AsiaPacific (@ICC_EAP) March 27, 2015