Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

There is an air of optimism amongst New Zealand Cricket fans, that the Black Caps can lift the ICC Men's T20 World Cup aloft in triumph, on Sunday night.

However, first they have to dispatch Pakistan on Wednesday, in Sydney, to set up a meeting in the title decider with the winner of the England verses India semi-final.

It is hard to comprehend that the T20 Cricket phenomenon took off less than twenty years ago.

When the Benson & Hedges One-Day Cricket Cup ended in 2002, the England Cricket Board looked to boost the games dwindling popularity, with a fast paced version of the game.

So Twenty 20 Cricket was born. The first official T20 County matches were played in the English summer of 2003.

T20 cricket spread like wildfire through the foundations of the sport, with the IPL (Indian Premier League) taking the smash and bash of twenty overs per side, to a world-wide television audience.

Prior to T20 Cricket, New Zealand cricket great, Martin Crowe, invented a rival shortened form of the game. While T20 simply reduced the overs required to complete a game of cricket, Cricket Max, introduced two revolutionary innovations.

Teams had two innings of 10 overs each, and shots played into a max zone behind the bowler, counted double, turning 4's into eights and 6's into twelves.

From 1996 to 2002, several NZC Cricket Max competitions were held. In 1997 the Max Caps played the English Lions, in a three game series in an attempt to take the new format, global.

The two new innovations of four innings and a max zone, proved too hard for the games stakeholders to embrace, with Cricket Max fading into history.

By contrast, T20 have changed batsmen and bowlers approach to Test and One-Day cricket. Batters now take a more aggressive approach to an innings, in the other two forms of the game, with spinners coming on to weave their magic early in an innings.

If cricket fans need any reminder of upsets that T20 can provide in a blink of the eye, they need to go no further than the current T20 World Cup.

It is hard to find a better example of the cut-throat nature of this edition of the ICC competition, than the West Indies. Forced into the qualifying first round, the two-time World T20 World Champions, were eliminated after being beaten by relative cricket minnows, in Scotland and Ireland.

The first game of the Super 12, between Australian and the Black Caps, set the tournament alight. Playing a high stakes games of risk and reward the New Zealand opened their innings with a hailstorm of absolute attack.

Openers Finn Allen with 42 off just 16 balls, and Devon Conway belting 92 from 58 balls, propelled the Kiwi side to post 200 for the loss of just three wickets.

Western Bay Black Caps, Trent Boult, finished of the Aussie tail to see our arch enemies removed for 111. This decisive victory contributed to Australia being eliminated from contesting the playoffs, because of their inferior run rate.

Can New Zealand win the 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup - Yes We Can.

The Black Caps must take their A Game, that dismissed Australia, into their semi-final with Pakistan and continue their momentum when/if they reach the title decider.