Australia's World Cup travel bug

Holding a Cricket World Cup over the combined eight million square kilometres of Australia and New Zealand has posed some interesting logistical challenges for teams to overcome.

Take, for instance, the contrasting plights of the tournament co-hosts. By the end of the pool stages, New Zealand will have travelled a touch over 2000km for their six games, while Australia will have racked up more than 13,000km.

The vagaries of a schedule that fits 42 games into a month saw Australia scheduled for one match a week to open the tournament but then play three in eight days in the lead-up to the quarter-finals.

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Australia's travel during the group stage of the World Cup. Plenty of frequent flyer points // Google

The intervention of Cyclone Marcia washed out Australia's clash with Bangladesh meaning they played just one match in 13 days, but travel is something Aaron Finch says the team has been forced to adapt to.

"It's been difficult. Anytime you're changing time zones as dramatic as Auckland to Perth, it's quite tough," Finch said on Friday in Sydney.

"But we did everything possible to counteract that. There's really no excuse for the boys not to be fresh for the game.

"It's a World Cup. You embrace everything about it, you don't complain and you just get on with it."

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Finch after scoring his maiden World Cup ton // Getty Images

Australia were beaten by New Zealand last Saturday in Auckland, then flew to Perth where they downed Afghanistan on Wednesday with ease.

The schedule was in sharp contrast to the start of the tournament, when a win over England was followed by a week's break and a washout in Brisbane.

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Finch, who scored 135 at the MCG in the tournament opener, had every right to feel a little antsy.

"When you're in good form, to play consistently is valuable," the hard-hitting opener said.

"A lot of the time, when you play then have a long break, you spend so much of it training and almost forget how it felt in the middle.

"But when you have that time, any changes you need to make to your game - you've got plenty of time to do it."

New Zealand have enjoyed the benefit of playing all their games at home, travelling just 2,008km as the crow flies between Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Auckland, Napier and Hamilton.

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Home sweet home. New Zealand's travel // Google

By contrast, Australia have crisscrossed the continent, travelling from Melbourne to Brisbane, across the Tasman to Auckland before embarking on the second-longest single journey of any team in the World Cup to Perth, and now returning to Sydney. They play their final pool game in Hobart next Saturday before a quarter-final in Adelaide.

The 'honour' of being asked to travel the furthest distance between pool games fell to Afghanistan – they travelled some nine-and-a-half hours from Dunedin (where they historically beat Scotland) to Perth (where they equally historically lost to Australia). At least they had five days rest between games.

Scotland is the only team who plays two games in the one city twice (Dunedin and Hobart), while India is the only other team to have back-to-back games in the one city – the subcontinent time-zone friendly Perth.

England and the UAE also had multiple appearances in the one New Zealand city but both had sojourns to other locations in between.

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Afghanistan's journey throughout the World Cup // Google

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South Africa won't venture any farther west than Melbourne, unless they play Australia in the quarter-finals // Google

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India start in the middle, head west, then all the way back and then some to finish in Auckland // Google