\u201cMatthew Hayden back in the day, he was big – he intimidated bowlers by just his stance,\u201d former England captain Michael Vaughan said on cricbuzz.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cGraeme Smith had it for a while as well. I think Finn Allen does that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he stands, as you run into bowl, you see this monster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe muscles and the tattoos are all there and you think: \u2018Oh God\u2019! Brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could again go in the final\u201d, added Vaughan.<\/p>\n
Auckland-born Allen gave a glimpse of his extraordinary talent only once earlier in the tournament – an unbeaten 84 off 50 balls in a 10-wicket romp past the UAE in a group fixture.<\/p>\n
Allen reached his hundred against South Africa in the most belligerent style, crashing two fours, two sixes and another four off successive balls from Marco Jansen.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazing hitting, world-class striking,\u201d New Zealand all-rounder Cole McConchie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has been doing it for a long time and to do it on a big stage like that is super special for him and everyone\u2019s really proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen, 26, made his debut in March 2021.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the world took notice of his power hitting after his 62-ball 137 laced with 16 sixes against Pakistan in a T20 in Dunedin.<\/p>\n
His unbeaten 100 at Eden Gardens was his third T20 international ton in 61 matches.<\/p>\n
Perennial underdogs New Zealand edged into the semi-finals on net run rate but are seeking a first World Cup in either white-ball format.<\/p>\n
They will be up against defending champions India at Ahmedabad\u2019s 132,000-seat Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n
A billion Indians will be watching elsewhere, but Allen said fans in New Zealand, with a population of 5.3 million, will also be throwing their weight behind their team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as a nation, hopefully everyone gets behind us and rallies around us for Sunday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully they can get up and have a Monday off at work and watch the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cI back us, we\u2019ve got a lot of momentum going into the weekend. I think if we play our best cricket, we can beat anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMatthew Hayden back in the day, he was big – he intimidated bowlers by just his stance,\u201d former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59500,30642,1558,8834,7022,198,42574,16558,5904,38268,2082,40088,42,172212,2344,5511,6804,2190,117,43,27257,20248,6777,117625,23554,6102,1962,313,67648,4758,40,38,41,39,810,4276,377,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-318033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-allen","9":"tag-ball","10":"tag-been","11":"tag-big","12":"tag-black","13":"tag-can","14":"tag-caps","15":"tag-cricket","16":"tag-final","17":"tag-finn","18":"tag-for","19":"tag-hardest","20":"tag-headlines","21":"tag-hitter","22":"tag-india","23":"tag-just","24":"tag-light","25":"tag-long","26":"tag-new","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-occasion","29":"tag-opener","30":"tag-performance","31":"tag-regarded","32":"tag-showed","33":"tag-side","34":"tag-special","35":"tag-super","36":"tag-t20","37":"tag-taking","38":"tag-top-news","39":"tag-top-stories","40":"tag-topnews","41":"tag-topstories","42":"tag-up","43":"tag-why","44":"tag-world","45":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}