New Zealand captain Kane Williamson said that they needed more 15-20 runs in the second game to win against a competitive team like India. They lost on Sunday at Eden Park by seven wickets and India took a lead in the five-match series by 2-0. New Zealand chose to bat first but put up only 132 runs on the board for the loss of five wickets. India chased down the total with two overs to spare.
“It was a tough day and the wicket was quite different from the first game. As a batting unit, we needed probably another 15-20 runs more for a competitive total. Credit to the Indian bowlers for the way they restricted us, credit to the Indian side that put us under pressure and outplayed us in all the departments,” Williamson said.
New Zealand was able to create pressure on India at first by dismissing Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the first five overs. But KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer’s heroics snatched the game away from them.
“Even if we had 130 on the board on a small ground, we knew we had to take early wickets. I think with the spinners, we were able to take the game to a point where something had to give. They showed the experience and took the game deeper, they were clinical,” Kane Williamson added.
“We need to bat a little better perhaps. That’s something we would like to do. I don’t think the surface changed too much. We needed to take a couple of wickets on the sluggish wicket. We were probably 15-20 runs than where we wanted to be. We need to be better in the next match. We need to keep moving forward as a group as we’re up against a tough side like India. That’s a great thing, we get to test ourselves against the best,”
The third T20I will be played on Wednesday at Hamilton.
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