Colombo, Feb 27 (PTI) Still uncertain of their semifinal spot after losing by four wickets against England, New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner said the Kiwis could have made their life easier by winning the match on Friday.
The win for England, who were already qualified for the semifinals, meant Pakistan are still alive in tournament and need a big win against Sri Lanka in their last Super Eights match on Saturday to overtake New Zealand on run rate and book their semifinal berth.
“That was a good match. Obviously, it would have made our lives easy if we won. But again, we played a pretty good game. There’s obviously moments, both with the bat and the ball, that you can probably look back on and kind of turn the game a little bit,” Santner said at the post-match presentation.
Santner credited England for their courageous effort but felt New Zealand were a few runs short with the bat.
“But again, credit to England and the way they played. We set up a good platform to target the last few overs and lost a few there. We only kind of scraped to 160. It could have easily been 170, 175. But then obviously at the end, you need 40 off the last three.
“And yeah, the way they were able to take down the offing and obviously at the end was good. Obviously, the other innings we kind of lost wickets throughout and then, weren’t able to get to a score through, I guess, the last four overs. But, tonight we kind of set a platform, not to the second time out in a pretty good spot. “And then, maybe took some tough options straight off the time out. But again, you need to kind of get runs and we were thinking at that stage 170, 175 would have been a really good score,” he said.
As far as equation is concerned, if Pakistan bat first, they need to win by 65 runs and if they chase, they need to complete the target in 13.1 overs to overtake New Zealand.
England captain Harry Brook was full of praise for leg-spinner Reehan Ahmed, who picked up 2/28 with the ball and then made an unbeaten 7-ball 19 to take England home along side Will Jacks (32 not out off 18 balls).
“We’ve seen what Reh (Ahmed) can do in the nets and he’s gone out and played beautifully, taken it away from them. Along with Jacksy (Jacks), his fourth MOM, pretty happy with that performance. We said at the start, we’re going to select on conditions and we thought today was the perfect opportunity to bring him (Ahmed) in and he did an amazing job.
“New Zealand are a wery strong side, we played against them before Christmas, they do everything so well, running between wickets and then some extreme power.” Jos Butler is yet to make a substantial score in the tournament, returning for another duck on Friday, but Brook backed the veteran wicketkeeper batter.
“Been a lot said, he’s (Buttler) played 150 games for England and people need to take a step back from that. He’s in a rut now but that’s an exciting thing, to know what he could produce in the next couple of games. “He’s a phenomenal player and I’ve got no doubts about him.” PTI SSC SSC PDS PDS
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