New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson admitted that the wicket wasn’t easy to bat on but their openers made things easy for them to defeat India in the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 clash.
New Zealand dented Team India's chances of qualifying for the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup 2021 by hammering them by 8 wickets to gain two important points.
Blackcaps skipper Kane Williamson asked Team India to bat after winning the toss in the must-win clash for both sides. The Kiwi bowlers never allowed Indian batters to settle and took wickets at the regular intervals to put the Virat Kohli-led side in all sorts of trouble.
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While the duo of Trent Boult and Ish Sodhi combined to take 5 wickets, Tim Southee and Adam Milne too chipped in and restricted Team India to the total of just 110/7.
Even though New Zealand lost two wickets while chasing but Daryl Mitchell’s knock of 49 runs and Kane Williamson’s unbeaten 33 runs took them home with 33 balls to spare.
Talking about the win, New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson said that his side displayed great performance against a top-quality Indian team. He said that even though the surface wasn’t easy to bat on, their openers batted well to set the chase.
"There's always planning to go into the game, but this was a great performance against a side that puts up a fight. The surface wasn't easy to find rhythm on, and the way the openers came out really set things up for the chase," Kane Williamson said at the post-match presentation.
Williamson lauded his spinners saying that they adapted to the conditions very well and kept applying pressure. He added that his side always commit to the brand of cricket and today’s match was the perfect example of that.
“It's just about adapting to the conditions as well as we could. The way the spinners kept applying pressure was commendable and it was a complete performance. We play against strong teams all the time, and there are match-winners in every side, and of that, we commit to our brand of cricket and today was a good example ” he said.
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Kane Williamson praise leg-spinner Ish Sodhi for his figures of 2/17 against India and said that they are looking forward to the rest of the games.
"Ish is an outstanding white-ball bowler, and he's very experienced in playing T20 cricket, having played in different leagues all over the world, and we're looking forward to the rest of the games in the league stages," he said.
New Zealand would be hoping to win all their remaining matches and qualify for the semi-finals. They will next face Scotland on 3rd November.
While on the other hand, Team India has lost two matches and their hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals have almost vanished. They will next face Afghanistan on 3rd November.
(Star Sports inputs)
