Ahmedabad: New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner defended his decision to bowl first after winning the toss in the all-important T20 World Cup final, which they lost to India by a whopping 96 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium, here on Sunday.
Santner felt if the bowlers had squeezed in a few tight overs in the powerplay and grabbed a wicket or two things could have been different.
“I think it was a pretty good wicket throughout. There wasn't much fit. I guess the bowlers and the cutters were really holding, not much spin. So I think either way you look at it, I think if we could have got a couple wickets in the power play, squeezed it a little bit through the middle, 220 could have been chased down on a very good wicket. But I think credit to Sanju and Abhishek at the top to get 90 I think off the power play. It's pretty tough from there,” he added.
Santner added that the plan in the powerplay was to bowl away from the Indian batters’ hitting arc but it didn’t work according to the plan and gave full credit to Sanju and Abhishek for the way they batted in the powerplay.
“Yeah, I think there wasn't a lot of swing at the start. The bowlers were trying to do what they can to get out of the hitting arc. We know how good both Sanju, Abhishek and Kishan are at hitting all over the wicket. I think whichever way you look at it, there's no perfect plan when guys are going.
I think it is hard to stop when guys are going like that. Whether it was a few more yorkers or closing out balls, I think we tried the wide stuff and we tried the two on the big side. But I think credit has to go to the way they set that power play up. From there, you can go pretty hard and take a bit of a score by that end,” Santner said.
Santner also defended his decision to replace Glenn Phillip after he had bowled just one over and conceded just five runs.
“I think the way they played the over, Abhishek I thought played that very smart. I know at times he comes a little bit hard at the off-spinner, but he gave it over to Sanju. I think the first three overs is when the ball is doing its most. I think you can capitalise on the last three like they did. It was always going to be hard. I think if Sanju got out, it would have been another option for Glenn to bowl to the two left-handers. But when you're not taking wickets, it's always a challenge,” he added.
However, Santner felt there was no shame in losing to what he described as a ‘very good’ Indian team.
“A very good team. I think they know how to play in these conditions. They played on a lot of flat wickets against quality sides. They showed that again today. Once they're going, it's pretty tough to stop. For us, whether it was being braver with yorkers or bouncers, I think we tried a lot of the cutters.
It's the wickets that aren't offering it much. They just can't go as well. So I think they did knock it around at times. I think when we did use the slower bouncers, the yorkers, for that little phase in the middle, we were able to slow them down. But again, the damage was done. They were striking it pretty well at the moment.”
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The New Zealand skipper also stood by his decision to drop spinner Cole McConchie and pick Jacob Duffy for the World Cup final.
“Yeah, it was a tough one. I mean, we saw at Kolkata, I think the match-up again was off-spin to their top three. I've been about to look at the mixed soil. Usually there's no spin. There's always a little bit of bouncing. I think bowling-wise, it was Axar and Chakravarthy’s. There was no real spin at any stage. So I think which way you go, I think there was potentially a bit of bouncing, it seems.
But I think at the end of the day, it's an execution over who's bowling well . I think when you bowl nice areas for a period of time, you can get out of a lot of overs. I think that was the main thing,” he added.
