Young fans keen to push the boundaries

Big cricket fan Max Hanna, 10, is all prepared for the Cricket World Cup final at the MCG.

Ten-year-old Max Hanna's usual bed time is 8pm - but tomorrow is no ordinary school night.

He and thousands of other cricket-mad youngsters hope to be planted in front of TVs and pushing on past midnight to cheer on the Black Caps as they battle Australia for the hallowed Cricket World Cup.

"I really want to watch the final but we're still figuring that out," Max told the Weekend Herald. "Dad says it depends if we're bowling or batting first, but I'm going to try and make him let me watch the whole game."

The Ponsonby Primary School Year 6 pupil fell in love with cricket when India toured New Zealand last summer. The left-arm medium-pace bowler and part-time batter now plays for Grafton United's "Team Southee" and hopes to one day emulate his bowling hero Trent Boult, or batting maestro Kane Williamson.

Father Rod Hanna took Max to Eden Park for Tuesday's heart-stopping semifinal and Max admitted "I was pretty sleepy the next day".

He's so obsessed by the heroic Kiwi team that he's begun taking heat from his parents to wash his beloved Black Caps shirt - a birthday present inscribed with his surname, which he refuses to take off.

He'll probably be wearing it again tomorrow and reckons the as-yet undefeated Blacks Caps could pull off a historic victory in the cavernous cricket cauldron of the MCG.

"They're both really good teams but New Zealand is a very good squad and I think they'll just beat them."

Mr Hanna said late night sport often meant younger fans like Max missed out. But his son "leaped out of bed looking far better then I did on Wednesday morning", so he wasn't ruling out a late-night viewing session tomorrow.

Ponsonby Primary School principal Anne Malcolm expected a few "bleary-eyed" cricket fans in class come Monday morning.

"We'll just work a bit slower on the zone of proximal development."

She was comfortable about kids turning up a bit late as New Zealand making the World Cup final might be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"I would imagine some of them will get more and more tired as the day goes on. But it's history."