Time catches up with New Zealand, a nation in need of sporting solace | Matthew Engel


Cricket tour allows supporters to be enthusiastic again after semi-final defeat in the Rugby World Cup

Whichever side loses the Rugby World Cup final in Yokohama on Saturday, the country concerned will be plunged into what you might call shallow mourning. Or at least a portion of it will: largely but not wholly white, male and middle-class.

But in a faraway and now, once again, more or less forgotten country, it goes deeper and wider than that.

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