Cricket-New Zealand coach optimistic despite team's poor form

Recent results suggest coach John Wright is being overly optimistic about his New Zealand side's chances at the cricket World Cup when he talks about reaching the quarter-finals. "You just have to get through the group phase," Wright told Reuters.

"We are playing teams that we have to beat, then we have got Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan and we have to try and get (results in) some of those games and that gets you to the next stage, then she's a one-off situation and that's exciting.

"Some of those teams have enormous pressure on them and if we put it together on the day, we can beat anyone."First, however, New Zealand must break a poor run of form. They have lost 14 of their last 17 one-day internationals, culminating in a 3-2 series loss to Pakistan that ended on Saturday.

New Zealand punched about their weight in previous World Cups, making the semi-finals three times in the last five tournaments. Last year, however, they lost three of five games in Sri Lanka in August, with one match washed out, were embarrassed 4-0 by Bangladesh in five matches in Dhaka in October, then lost 5-0 to India in December.

The Pakistan team who beat them this year were a competent, yet not world-beating, side who have been trying to put 12 months of internal bickering, personnel changes and a betting scandal behind them.

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