All-rounder Daryl Mitchell stated that New Zealand will welcome their position as the “second favourite team” of Indian cricket fans as they attempt to make it through a challenging Super Eight group and advance to the Twenty20 World Cup semi-finals.
Following Saturday’s washout against Pakistan, the 2021 finalists—who were eliminated in the group stage of the previous tournament—now face two crucial matches against past champions Sri Lanka and England.
“We think of ourselves as India’s second favourite team and the support that we get in the country is really cool. Hopefully we could turn the sea of blue that we’re used to when we play against India into some black shirts as well,” Reuters quoted Mitchell as saying.
Mitchell hopes that his team’s experience will help them navigate the turning tracks of Colombo when they play Sri Lanka on Wednesday and England two days later.
“We all grew up in New Zealand on fast, bouncy, grassy wickets. I guess the experience that our group has got from playing in these parts of the world over a number of years has helped in how we want to go about it,” he added.
Mitchell emphasized the significance of maintaining concentration, even though New Zealand has their sights set on winning their maiden World Cup trophy.
“It’d be really nice to get over the line and win a trophy, but there’s a lot of cricket to be played between now and then. So for us, the strength is that we stay present in the moment. We don’t look too far ahead and we don’t make it bigger than what it is,” the 34-year-old said.
The explosive strokeplay of openers Tim Seifert and Finn Allen has mostly allowed Mitchell, who has 1,856 T20 international runs from 100 games since his 2019 debut, to settle into the role of a finisher.
“The ‘Bash Brothers’ up top have done a great job and long that continue throughout this tournament. We’ve recognised the balance of our side over here in India. The powerplay is very important, but the same goes for the middle (overs) with spin and the death as well. I have a finisher’s role from the 10 overs onwards – trying to read and adapt to the situation of the game and try and help us win those moments at the back end of the innings,” Mitchell said.
