Hamilton, Jan 22: New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum today said his team delivered at “key times” under pressure during their 15-run victory against India in the second cricket one-dayer here to take a 2-0 lead in the series.
It was again the near-perfect game for the Black Caps where they built on a solid platform provided by Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor in the middle-order, and then Corey Anderson launched an all-out assault at the death.
New Zealand followed it up with a disciplined performance with the ball, getting key wickets when it mattered the most.
“I thought under pressure, against a very good Indian batting line-up, we delivered at key times. It’s big from a confidence point of view. We have just got to challenge now to put it together again in a few days’ time,” McCullum said at the post-match press conference.
India made a valiant effort to overhaul the revised target of 297 in 42 overs in a rain-truncated game but failed to cross the finishing line scoring 277 for nine in 41.3 overs. The Duckworth-Lewis par score in 41.3 overs was 293.
McCullum praised his batsmen for setting up the win with a competitve total against a packed Indian batting line-up.
“I am really pleased with the way we constructed our innings again. It was mainly through the partnership of Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor. Martin Guptill played his hand as well and again they gave us the platform from where to launch in the death overs. And whilst the game was shortened, we were still in a nice position to do so. The batting blueprint was again executed tonight, which was encouraging obviously,” he said.
While the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed his openers for not converting their starts, his counterpart was of the opinion that early wickets played a vital role in setting up the win for New Zealand.
“Ideally you want to take wickets up front and that’s where we spend our resources, trying to attack early on knowing how important wickets are to the confidence of a team chasing.
“We weren’t able to take early wickets but we did the next best thing which is to control the run rate. And when you control the run rate, there is pressure on the batsman and the wickets sort of followed after that. I thought it was a pretty good performance from us with the ball under pressure,” he said. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel