T20 World Cup: Restricting India to 110 was 'really, really special', says NZ coach Gary Stead

New Zealand head coach Gary Stead was full of praise for the performances of his bowlers, in the T20 World Cup 2021 encounter against India on Sunday. The former pulled off a triumph by a margin of eight wickets, with Stead hailing his team’s performance as possibly the best he had ever seen in T20 cricket since taking over. Trent Boult certainly emulated Pakistan pacer Shaheen Afridi’s heroics against India, accounting for three dismissals just like the cricketer. Spinner Ish Sodhi further chipped in with two wickets to help the Black Caps restrict India to a total of 110 runs for the loss of seven wickets. Adam Milne and Tim Southee accounted for a dismissal apiece. While spinner Mitchell Santner did not pick a wicket, he was absolutely outstanding on the day conceding just 15 runs in his four overs.

“The bowling effort was absolutely outstanding”

“I thought the bowling effort was absolutely outstanding, possibly up there with the best performance I’ve seen in my time with the T20 bowling team. To restrict a star-studded team like India to 110 was really, really special and then I thought the batting was really, really clinical. It’s hard to say if it was ‘must win’ or not because it’s pretty early in the tournament. But you would imagine the way the group is structured that it’s going to be very difficult for the team that didn’t win to get through to the semi-finals,” said Stead in an interaction with the media.

However, the New Zealand head coach has stated that the team will not be taking any of their last three opponents lightly. Stead added that his players will be looking to improve their net run rate, which acts as a decider in the case of ties in the standings.

“Net run rate is always important. Afghanistan have got a big lead on everyone at the moment, but we’ll just have to see how the next two games play out before we play Afghanistan. But, at the end of the day, if we win all three games, it is in our hands, and that’s certainly our goal.”

“India looked a very ordinary team”

Former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar stated that India looked like a “very ordinary” team and were panicking during the defeat against New Zealand.

“Why did they send in Ishan Kishan? Hardik Pandya is bowling right at the end, he sould have bowled in the beginning. I just don’t understand what game plan India were playing with. It was a completely lost squad. Everyone had pressed the panic button. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma coming at different numbers, a new kid is batting at the top. They lost the toss and were just panicking,” said Shoaib in a video posted on his twitter handle.

“Fine, you are not able to connect, at least play out 20 overs as batsmen. India looked a very ordinary team to me. The bowling squad, apart from Bumrah and maybe Varun Chakravarthy, the rest of the pack looked very ordinary,” he added.