New Zealand are one of favourites, not dark horse: Chris Morris

South Africa all-rounder Chris Morris eulogised his upcoming opponent New Zealand in the World Cup, saying that the team does not deserve the 'dark horse' tag but are 'one of the favourites' in the tournament.

"In my opinion, I think they are one of the favourites. I don't want to call them dark horses, because I think they deserve more than that. They are a world class team. So our discipline is going to have to be even tighter against them. They're that good," Sport24.co.za quoted Morris, as saying.

New Zealand have displayed a scintillating performance in the World Cup and have not faced even a single defeat in the tournament so far.

New Zealand registered a massive 10-wicket victory in their opening match against Sri Lanka followed by a two-wicket victory and a seven-wicket win against Bangladesh and Afghanistan respectively. However, their fourth match against India got abandoned due to rain.

Morris is impressed with New Zealand's both bowling and batting line-up.

"They've got a seriously good bowling line-up and a destructive batting line-up and if they get going they're difficult to stop," he said.

The Proteas on Saturday registered their first victory in this edition of quadrennial tournament, after facing three back to back defeats.

Talking about the upcoming clash, Morris said: "We're going to work hard in the next few days that we've got on our analysis and we'll assess conditions when we get to Birmingham, but we'll have to be at our best to beat those guys."

South Africa will compete with New Zealand on June 19.