Chennai, Feb 16 (PTI) New Zealand all-rounder Glenn Phillips on Monday said the defeat against South Africa will have no bearing ahead of their final match against the bottom-placed Canada, as the Kiwis look to seal a Super Eights berth from Group D here.
New Zealand are currently placed second with two wins from three games behind South Africa, who are through to the Super Eights with six points.
The Kiwis will look to address the frailties exposed by South Africa in the seven-wicket defeat and reaffirm their status as title contenders and Phillips feels that defeat shouldn’t necessarily be looked upon as the “be-all end-all of learnings”.
“You look at games of T20 cricket and there’s small margins between winning and losing. South Africa were very good in all facets of the game the other day. On our day as well, we’ve taken (on) South Africa, well, in different formats,” Phillips said.
“But we’ve played our best cricket in the recent past, so understanding that you don’t necessarily look at one game as the be-all end-all of learnings. There’s not necessarily been a pattern per se. If our top order has gone down, then our middle order (has) stepped up. Sometimes, it just happens to be the way that the top order gets off to a start and then the middle can’t go through.
“That’s just the nature of T20 cricket when you’re trying to keep the momentum going the whole time. But if you look at the options the boys took, they’re in really clear mindsets.” Phillips said execution is crucial in T20 cricket.
“It just comes down to execution at the end of the day. With the ball as well, we’re just trying to make sure that we’re hitting our straps as much as possible. Guys are allowed to hit you (on) good balls and then if we didn’t bowl as well as we have on previous days, then we look at that and we can be better on the next day and that’s fine.
“It’s professional cricket at the end of the day and sometimes you’re good and sometimes you’re not. You just hope the gap between the two is a little less each day.” If they progress to the Super Eights, which they are expected to quite easily, New Zealand will travel to Sri Lanka and Phillips said adapting to the conditions will be key.
“I don’t think it’s about necessarily improving on any given thing per se. It’s about adapting as much as possible to the conditions. The conditions in Sri Lanka are going to be very different to the ones that we’ve got here, so it poses a completely different challenge.
“There’s no one thing in cricket that’s a magic nugget to be able to give performances, so it’s just about trying to be a little bit better and doing our things that we do best for longer periods of time, especially if the conditions dictate that we’re going to have to take a game a little bit longer,” he said.
“Maybe scores of 150-160 might be different in Sri Lanka with a bit more turn, but you never know. We may get an absolute belter and then 200 still on. It’s just (about) adapting to those conditions regardless of who we’re playing at any given time.” Canada wicketkeeper-batter Shreyas Movva feels bowling is one area which had let them down in the tournament.
“New Zealand is a really good team and we have seen them how they perform in the World Cup matches. We had two practice matches in Chennai and we really did well in the batting. It’s just that in bowling we need to come up with good plans,” he said.
“It was not easy for the team to come up with after that huge loss (against UAE). Coming back from that, we need to regroup as a team. Bowling-wise, as I mentioned, we need to have some plans to back the fielder and execute the plans.
“Yes, it’s a little bit disappointing with the results. Individually, players are trying to do their best and staff also doing their best to get the best result out of each game. (The) next two games are in Chennai and we are used to this temperature and hoping for the best results.” PTI SSC SSC DDV
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