Kane Williamson proud of New Zealand's performance despite the loss

Kane Williamson is proud of his team’s performance during the tour of India. New Zealand’s tour came to an end after losing a tight game in Trivandrum yesterday. Williamson, however, was satisfied with the team’s fighting spirit. They were the closest to beat India in the ODI series than any of the teams.

New Zealand played some quality cricket and were extremely good. They lost the deciders of both the ODI and the T20Iies in the last over. That tells us how good the Kiwis were during the tour. No team had managed to take India into a decider before the Black Caps. Williamson was not at all upset after their final game of the tour.

Proud of the team

He was extremely proud of the effort his team put in during the tour. He said that they were extremely good but just not good enough to beat India. The hosts are a side to beat at home as they haven’t lost a series at home for a long time now. However, he did say that there was a lot of room for improvement.

“I thought in both of them [deciders] we were very good, just not quite good enough. That’s the challenge; both of them came down to the last couple of balls and when that is the case, there are such small margins that we look to make those improvements. But on a whole, as a unit, we are constantly trying to improve and get better. And I think, we have seen that throughout the series but there’s still a way to go to where we want to be,” Williamson said in the post-match conference.

He also stated that it was a hard fought series and the level of cricket played was top notch; also mentioning that it was a shame to end up on the wrong side of both series as it came down to the last over on both the occasions.

He said, “We’ve shown some really good signs, like I said such a fine line, especially in white-ball cricket and we saw that throughout the series. It was a really tough-fought series, both teams played really good competitive cricket and for a lot of games to come down to the last three balls makes for good watching but a shame to be on the wrong side.”

The fifth bowler dilemma

New Zealand struggled throughout the series with the fifth bowler. They used the combination of two Colins, Colin de Grandhomme and Colin Munro as the fifth bowler. It did not work perfectly and Williamson agreed to it as he said that it is still new for the both of them to adapt. De Grandhomme did extremely well in the IPL and it was one of the reasons he was picked in the New Zealand team.

“I suppose that fifth-bowling role for us is fairly new,” he said. “Colin – both Colins I suppose and some of the part-time spinners – they are relatively new to that role to make up those 10 overs. But we certainly know in some conditions how effective they can be and we saw Colin de Grandhomme throughout the IPL bowl exceptionally well for Kolkata [Knight Riders]. It is a balancing act on different surfaces. The batting unit has a really nice balance to it but it is just trying to adapt, read the game the best you can and seeing our bowlers adapt well,” Williamson said.

The Thiruvananthapuram T20I

The rain-marred Trivandrum T20I was reduced to 8 overs a side and the Kiwis captain said that it was hard for the players to play the death game. The batters had to go out and attack as the required run rate would climb up immediately. The pitch also didn’t support the batters as the rain had dampened it to a great extent.

“In terms of a T20 generally, you have the start of the game and the death phase which is the last whatever depending on how many wickets they have lost so five or six and you tend to see those two fantastic death bowlers bowling again,” the visiting skipper added.

“When it’s eight overs, they’re kind of on the defense because batsmen are coming out so aggressively. And the nature of the surface it was taking so much turn. All bowlers were a threat out there and I suppose batsmen were trying their best trying to generate a strike-rate,” Williamson concluded.