Ranchi: New Zealand captain Kane Willamson said the fact that dew did not play a part in the game helped their cause greatly, after he altered the trend at this venue by winning the toss and batting first instead of opting to field.
"Coming here and not knowing whether there will be dew or not was a bit confusing. I am happy that dew hasn't played a part, and that worked in our favour. Besides, we executed our skills well, and so we won," Williamson said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Martin Guptill, who was adjudged the man-of-the-match for his 72 runs off 84 balls, said he did not expect his score to be the highest score of the match. "I did not expect this. But I think we fought till the end. We thought 260 would be defendable, but could have scored a bit more. Our bowlers did a great job."
India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni rued giving away too many extras (16), saying it played a big factor at the end as India lost by just 19 runs. "We gave a lot of runs away in extras. I felt we could have avoided that. This game was similar to Delhi, where we kept losing wickets," he said.
Dhoni also defended youngsters like Hardik Pandya, saying they will learn from this game that big hitting doesn't always reap dividends. "The wicket was getting slower. We needed small partnerships. We failed to do that. It was not too many runs. Cricket has evolved, and the new generation like to pay big shots. If you ask them not to play, they will go into a shell. I think they will learn from this match when to play the big shots and when to rotate the strike," he said.
