'What matters is Guptill form'

Martin Guptill's double ton was the fillip New Zealand needed heading into their World Cup semifinal against South Africa, according to captain Brendon McCullum.

At stake is an historic first appearance in the World Cup final with neither side having progressed past the semis in the past.

New Zealand were forced to hastily rearrange their squad Monday after Adam Milne was ruled out with a left heel injury and Matt Henry was rushed up to Auckland.

But McCullum said they remained confident without their express bowler and the presence of Guptill after his colossal 237 not out against West Indies was an inspiration to the rest of the team.

New Zealand have won four of their six previous World Cup clashes against South Africa, including the last three, but McCullum said history had no bearing on this battle for the right to play the winners of the second semifinal between India and Australia, taking place in Sydney on Thursday.

Much more relevant was the boost to his side of Guptill's return to form.

"To see it in such a crunch game as well and still display the same game plan which he trained so hard for was confirmation that obviously it can be done and that will flow on in terms of confidence for the rest of the squad," he said.

Guptill came into the tournament with a string of disappointing scores including two golden ducks against Sri Lanka but has progressively played his way into form.

His last three innings have been 57, 105 and 237 and McCullum expected more.

"The game throws up its ups and its downs but you need to be able to remain reasonably level and go about your work.

"The way that 'Gup' was able to back up a really good hundred against Bangladesh and then to be able to turn in such an amazing performance as he did the other day shows that he certainly possesses those characteristics.

"He's been a huge player for us in this tournament and I'd suggest he's probably not quite done yet."

Guptill's record against South Africa, however, is relatively poor with a total of 115 runs scored in 11 matches with a highest score of 58 in Napier in 2012.

In five of his last six innings against the Proteas, he has been dismissed for single-figure scores.

McCullum indicated the loss of Milne could cause a rethink of the balance of their line up with weather and pitch conditions to be taken into account.

Mitchell McClenaghan, who stood in for Milne when he injured a shoulder before the Bangladesh game, offers bounce, veteran Kyle Mills brings in a miserly option while replacing Milne with Henry would be a like-for-like move.

McCullum did not expect conditions to be as they were when New Zealand ripped out Australia for 151.

"It was obviously really humid during that game and we saw some high quality swing bowling. Tomorrow is meant to be a little less humid so we probably won't see as much swing."

10 Facts

- South Africa have won one and lost seven of the nine semifinals they have played in all one-day international tournaments. The other was a tie, against Australia at the 1999 World Cup -- a result that saw them eliminated on lower Super Six table placing

- This will be the seventh World Cup meeting between these sides with the Black Caps having won four of the previous six encounters. The only one of these that was a knockout match however was New Zealand's win at the quarterfinal stage at Dhaka in 2011

- Daniel Vettori needs one more wicket to become New Zealand's leading wicket taker in World Cup history; he is currently tied with Jacob Oram on 36

- South Africa have won three of their last four completed ODIs against New Zealand at Eden Park

- The Black Caps have lost the toss in the last 12 ODIs they have played at Eden Park and have been put into bat on nine of these occasions, winning just one of these nine (L5, T1, 2x N/R)

- Seven players have hit three consecutive ODI centuries before, if Martin Guptill hits a ton in this match he will be the third Black Caps player to do so

- Two more runs will see Guptill become the first Kiwi to score 500-plus runs in a single World Cup, Scott Styris hit 499 in 2007. He would become the eighth player from any nation to achieve the feat

- Imran Tahir has bowled more balls (404) than any other player at this tournament; he and Vettori are the joint top wicket taking spinners (both 15)

- Farhaan Behardien has scored 74 runs off the 36 balls he has faced in the tournament; he has the lowest dot ball percentage of any player (11.1 per cent)

- Kane Williamson has scored 53 runs from 51 balls bowled by Morne Morkel in ODIs, never having been dismissed by the South African seamer