NEW DELHI: New Zealand captain Tim Southee is happy that his team had to work hard in the United Arab Emirates to win the game 2-1 on Sunday.
Even though they were missing several key players, New Zealand won the first T20 match by a narrow margin.
However, in the second T20 match, UAE shocked everyone by beating New Zealand for the first time in any format.
New Zealand played better in the final game on Sunday. Will Young hit 56 runs in his first match of the series, and Mark Chapman made 51 runs to help New Zealand score 166-5.
Southee said that New Zealand’s “best performance of the series” came from Ben Lister’s 3-35 against the hosts, who scored 134-7.
“We expected a tough challenge in these conditions,” Southee said referring to the heat after they prevailed by 32 runs at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
“As I said at the start of the series, they’re a growing side, they’re ever-improving and we saw that throughout the series they played extremely well in those first two games.
Even though they were missing several key players, New Zealand won the first T20 match by a narrow margin.
However, in the second T20 match, UAE shocked everyone by beating New Zealand for the first time in any format.
New Zealand played better in the final game on Sunday. Will Young hit 56 runs in his first match of the series, and Mark Chapman made 51 runs to help New Zealand score 166-5.
Southee said that New Zealand’s “best performance of the series” came from Ben Lister’s 3-35 against the hosts, who scored 134-7.
“We expected a tough challenge in these conditions,” Southee said referring to the heat after they prevailed by 32 runs at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
“As I said at the start of the series, they’re a growing side, they’re ever-improving and we saw that throughout the series they played extremely well in those first two games.
“We were able to build a partnership there with Chapman and Will Young – someone who came in after the first two games – so that was pleasing.”
New Zealand will travel to England later this month to play four T20 and as many one-day internationals before heading to India for the ODI World Cup in October-November.
(With inputs from Reuters)
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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