“We don’t mind a few scratches,” captain Mitchell Santner said on Saturday, as New Zealand faces defending champions and hosts India in the T20 World Cup final.
Santner’s side face India in Ahmedabad on Sunday, with more than 100,000 home fans expected to fill the Narendra Modi Stadium.
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New Zealand have never won a white-ball World Cup, although they reached the 2021 final and lost to Australia.
“I don’t care about winning trophies,” Santner said.
He added: “It’s obviously going to be a challenge as we all know we’re probably not the favorites to win.
“But yeah, I’m willing to break a few hearts to lift the trophy just once.”
New Zealand can be hot or cold.
They defeated previously unbeaten South Africa by nine wickets in the semi-finals after Finn Allen set the record for the fastest time in the tournament’s history.
However, they also lost to South Africa and England early in the competition.
They will face India, who are in great form with three consecutive wins.
In 2023, Pat Cummins’ Australia silenced the home crowd in Ahmedabad in the ODI World Cup final.
“The goal is probably to silence the crowd,” Santner said.
“T20 cricket can be fickle sometimes. We saw South Africa play some very good cricket till the end and then they had a little bit of a problem playing against us and getting eliminated.
“So, for us, I think it takes away our confidence. If we went about our jobs the same way, we could confuse other big teams.”
Top-ranked India are trying to become the first team to win back-to-back T20 World Cups and the first team to lift the trophy on their home soil.
They also become the first players to win the title three times.
But they will have to endure the expectations of packed venues and hundreds of millions of people watching on TV.
Santner feels the level of expectations can weigh on them.
“So I think there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that,” he said. “So if we can go out there and give it a try, I think it will put pressure on them and see what happens.”
New Zealand, India’s Jasprit Bumrah tries to remember he’s ‘just human’
New Zealand all-rounder Glenn Phillips is known for his hard hitting, but one of his team’s biggest tests will be beating India’s star seamer Jasprit Bumrah.
With a series of accurate yorkers and length balls, Bumrah bowled a near-perfect over that yielded just six runs and thwarted England’s late fightback in the semi-final.
Phillips said the team was ready to pounce if Bumrah faltered at all in the final.
“He’s a human being too,” Phillips told reporters. “Like all of our players, he can have bad days, so we hope he has a good day as well.”
Bumrah’s accuracy and ability to bowl yorkers left opponents breathless. Against England, he scored 499 runs in 40 overs, with a record of 1 win and 33 losses in 4 overs.
However, they did not perform well against the Kiwis in the first five T20 series of the year.
India won 4-1, but Bumrah, who played four matches, took only four wickets and conceded 9.46 runs over.
Phillips acknowledged Bumrah’s first class, but said his tactics against any bowler are never the same.
“Obviously we had some very good matches against him in the bilateral series, but he is a first-class bowler,” Phillips said.
“He has so many variations. He hits the block hole at the death incredibly well.”
Phillips also downplayed the possible ploy of playing Bumrah’s four overs and targeting other bowlers.
“That’s not necessarily the case per se,” he said.
“As I said, the bowler is allowed to make mistakes and if he makes a mistake we have to clean it up.
“It also means if he bowls we have to react and adapt to other things.”
Perennially underdogs, New Zealand entered the semi-finals with a narrow difference in net run rate, but Finn Allen’s 33-ball 100 defeated favorites South Africa, kicking things up a notch.
New Zealand overturned a target of 169-8 in just 12.5 overs to claim a nine-wicket victory. They are now aiming to win their first World Cup title in either white-ball format.
Mitchell Santner’s side will be playing against more than 100,000 spectators, as well as a billion Indian fans watching on TV, but the New Zealanders don’t seem to be worried about that.
“For us, it’s just going out and having fun,” Phillips said.
“We’re having a great time as a group, going out there and doing what’s best for our country, and of course the packed crowd is great.
“We play to entertain people. Whether they’re supporting us or supporting India, it’s great for cricket in general.”
