New Zealand head coach Rob Walter has expressed his disappointment over New Zealand’s struggle against India in the last two games of the ongoing five-match T20I series. Their costly fielding errors played a key role in their defeats in the opening two T20Is, with India securing nail-biting wins and taking a 2-0 lead.
In the first T20I, New Zealand struggled to stop India despite posting a mammoth target of 226. The Black Caps had opportunities to put India under greater pressure but failed to hold on to two important chances. Axar Patel was dropped on 13 and he capitalised on that chance, scoring 24, while Shreyas Iyer received a lifeline on 27 and scored a much-needed 42.
“It’s a tough one. In T20 cricket, it's the finest of margins, as we know. Both games, we could easily have been on the winning side of it, but weren’t. Probably missed out on a couple of opportunities each time where you probably would have sealed the game off for us. It's a bit of a disappointment, but also very happy with how we've played," Walter said while speaking to reporters.
"We haven't played much competitive cricket coming into the series as a team. And actually, I felt we've played pretty well in probably 80% of each game. We just haven't been able to put the finishing touches on it each time, which is disappointing. But still so much good stuff to come out of both games so far."
New Zealand were in good position in the second game, but their fielding woes resurfaced at crucial moments. Jacob Duffy dismissed Abhishek Sharma in the second over, but that delivery was called a no-ball, giving the Indian batter another chance. Mitchell Santner later dropped Sanju Samson near the boundary, while Bevon Jacobs missed opportunities to dismiss Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Naman Dhir. Meanwhile, Walter also highlighted the conditions that might in some ways have influenced the game.
"Conditions are always different even if the day is the same. The surface was a little bit different. The starts to the game are different. Nothing ever flows the exact same way. Certainly a little bit trickier from a batting point of view and that reflected in the scores. Probably also the bowling units on both ends bowled a bit better than the night before, having learnt a few lessons from that.