The World Cup final was over almost the instant it began.

A lavish stage had been set. After a long, but slick and spectacular tournament, all roads led to the MCG, which was glittering autumnally and packed as no ground in Australia ever had been for cricket previously. Australia was the favourite of crowd and punters, New Zealand represented themselves and the rest of the world..

The dying notes of the national anthems would still have been in the ears of Brendon McCullum, New Zealand's captain and talisman, as he faced Mitchell Starc, Australia's gangling left-armer, soon to be crowned the player of the tournament. Runs in a rush was McCullum's speciality, wickets by the fistful Starc's. This finale could start only with one of two bangs, but never a whimper.

It lasted three balls. McCullum missed them all, and the third rattled his off-stump. Against Starc's slingers, coming at his ankles like a cowboy's lasso at a tangle-footed calf, perhaps he had swung too recklessly. But he and his team had not arrived here by being reck-ful. Nonetheless, his dismissal set this finale on an inexorable course that led led many hours later to Australia's fifth World Cup title.

Counterpointing McCullum, retiring Australian captain Michael Clarke led Australia to the cusp of victory with a sweetly hit 74. Contrary to the last, this was probably his most composed innings of a disrupted, fitful and emotional summer. When he fell with a handful to get, several of the Kiwis trudged across to shake his hand then and there. It was graciousness complementing grace.

The Kiwis were the tournaments gallants, but this day were overwhelmed, perhaps by the occasion, certainly by Australia's brand of cricket forte. Plan B – sans McCullum's salvo – had worked against other attacks, but not the Australians' lair of limber lefties.

Beforehand, speculation centred on how the Kiwis, playing away from their compact homelands for the first time in the tournament, would deal with the vastness of the MCG. Now, though, the problem was not that the boundaries were too far away, but the bowlers too close. Starc, and after him Mitch Johnson, and must have looked like fishtailing trucks coming towards them, with Josh Hazlewood swerving from the other direction in the next lane. "Our bowlers won us the World Cup," Clarke would aver later. After six weeks of batting hit-and-giggle, bowlers had the last laugh. They always do.

One effect of express bowling is to make slower bowling more deceptive. Martin Guptill fell to a shot played like the release of a held breath. Kane Williamson followed, gulled by a Johnson cutter. These were New Zealand's heavyweights, blown away.

Grant Elliott and Ross Taylor set about repairs, hesitantly at first, thinking safety first both bodily and for the sake of their team, then with diligent batsmanship. At 3/150, the Kiwis had a fragile foothold on a sheer face.

Then, as near-April's shadows crept across the pitch, a veil suddenly was drawn over New Zealand's innings. The power play is supposed to empower batsmen. Now, it became an off-switch. From the first ball, wicketkeeper Brad Haddin all but carthweeled to his right to catch Taylor from James Faulkner's diagonal dart. Haddin again was the little girl with the curl on her forehead, superb with the gloves, but otherwise a boor as he mocked Guptill in the moment of his dismissal. Later, there were more snarly words for Elliott. It is why this Australian team – even in this triumphal moment – is more admired as cricketers than loved as sportsmen. Clarke said he saw nothing.

Two more wickets fell within seven balls, then Elliott finally perished to the illlusion that is Faulkner's slower ball and took with him the Kiwis' last batting hopes. Faulkner would be named man-of-the-match. The six Tim Southee clobbered from Johnson was but a dying convulsion. New Zealand lost 7/33, and, in a tournament in which 300 was only ever an opening bid, were left to defend 183.

Low target and high are alike in that they are not to be lingered over. New Zealand's attack has been its strength in this tournament, and quickly, Trent Boult had Aaron Finch, following an inswinger as if hypnotised. But bowling to David Warner sometimes is like ramming a ball into a cannon's muzzle; it is best to jump out of the way. It was this day.

When he was done, the alarms were off. Clarke, the outgoing captain, and Steve Smith, the captain apparent, batted Australia to the threshold of victory at the measured and assured tempo of Test cricket, Clarke's only game henceforth, before adding bells, whistles and a ribbon at the end. With nine to get, Clarke played Matt Henry into his stumps, a door prize for Kiwis. Thirty-three overs was enough.

"It's never nice running second, but sometimes you just have to doff your cap," said McCullum, the gentleman of the tournament. But not for the first or last time, the final of a major championship was an anti-climax. It happens so often, it amounts to a syndrome.