KEY POINTS:
What's wrong with a tie anyway? Nothing actually.
Then again, there are ties, and ties. A test match tie cannot be bettered, the supreme form of the game finishing absolutely even. It's only happened twice in 131 years, at Brisbane in 1960 and Chennai in 1986, Australia being the common denominator.
An ODI tie? There have been 23. Common as old muck. Three in New Zealand, too, most recently at Napier's McLean Park involving England last season. And a Twenty20 tie? Four so far, and two between New Zealand and the West Indies.
The others - India against Pakistan at the world Twenty20 championship last year, and Canada and Zimbabwe last October - ended in bowl-offs, ludicrous formats of bowlers trying to hit three undefended stumps. A bit like shooting at an open goal in soccer, you'd think, but the statistics suggest it's rather harder.
At Eden Park on Friday night, the bowl-off became the world first one-over eliminator - still a souped-up bowl-off with different rules - with Chris Gayle playing the terminator, pinballing Dan Vettori's six balls for 25.
Vettori, understandably, took a dim view of it all. "A tie is a tie. What's wrong with a tie? The game's called Twenty20, not One1," he said.
He may have been hurting at Gayle's roughhouse treatment after turning in a terrific spell during the actual game, but he has a good point.
It's a gimmick, a contrivance which has a desperately American twang to it. The United States can't stand two teams finishing level. You've got to have a winner. So regular season National Football League games have overtime; Major League baseball has its extra innings - the 15th innings. Baseball might be the only game which could go on forever.
But, in the entertainment game - which top flight sport is - the spectator is always right, and at Eden Park, once they knew what the heck was going on, the crowd loved it.
New Zealand's coach Andy Moles reckoned his team's dressing room was the only place unhappy with the outcome.
So a tie's no longer exciting enough. That's entertainment.
