It was another disappointing outing for the Kiwis in a knockout match of the ICC tournament.
It was another disappointing outing for the Kiwis in a knockout match of the ICC tournament. They have managed to make the final four of the last three ICC Men's T20 World Cups and the last two ICC Men's Cricket World Cups, only to miss out on the final prize every single time.
After the game, BlackCaps skipper Kane Williamson expressed his frustration at this particular loss against Pakistan.
“To me it's about the game, the performance, and that's certainly what we look at," Williamson said after the game. "That's the frustrating thing for me today. If you get beaten playing your best cricket, then you certainly have to accept that.
"Today was a little bit disappointing. There were some good bits, but we thought we had a defendable total if we were to be on our game, and the margins are small in this format, and Pakistan were outstanding with the bat and certainly chased that down."
New Zealand were the runner-ups in the 2019 ODI World Cup and also in the T20 World Cup last year.
"I think we've played in a number of different finals and put out really good performances, probably good enough to win, and either got met by a side that's played a little bit better or a side that's played about equal, you know, however it looks."
“You accept some of those things, and so the frustrating part of this today is that we weren't quite on top of our game. We fought hard and we showed some good characteristics that are important for our team and the attitude you want to see, but yeah, it wasn't to be. That's the frustrating part to me," the captain stated.
While Williamson talked about the positive environment in the camp, he also admitted that the semi-final loss has hurt his team.
"You play a number of tournaments. Yeah, you want to win some, but you finish a tournament, you certainly just start focusing on the next one. To me it comes down to the cricket, and that's where we put our focus. The environment, how well we're tracking, and there's been a lot of good stuff.
"The journey was good, a lot of good cricket, but as we know, you've got to continue to as you go into the business end, and today was certainly frustrating."
In the semi-final clash, Pakistan restricted New Zealand to 152/4 and then chased down the target with five balls to spare.
According to Kane Williamson, Pakistan's batting powerplay was a turning point in the game.
"Pakistan got off to a good start and put us under pressure and then were able to sort of wrestle back a little bit of momentum and build a couple of partnerships and then sort of fight our way to a score that we thought on that surface we could make a little bit difficult."
(t20worldcup.com inputs)