“England put us under a lot of pressure”: Williamson
New Zealand captain Kane Williamson heaped praises on all-round England after the latter’s convincing 119-run win against the Kiwis sealed their semi-final spot on Wednesday. After two consecutive defeats, the hosts bounced back strongly to win their last two matches and finished third on the points table. This is also the first time since 1992 that England have made it to the semi-finals of a World Cup. New Zealand though, spiralled down towards the end after peaking too early in the tournament and have now lost three games on the trot. However, they still remain in the Top 4 and are most likely to go through.
The track for Wednesday’s game at Chester-le-Street was ideal for batting in the first innings, especially when England’s openers were smashing the Kiwi bowlers all over the park. Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy cooked up another batting masterclass, before the middle order crumbled around Eoin Morgan. The wicket kept getting slower and became especially challenging in the second innings, as New Zealand set out to chase a huge total.
Williamson, while acknowledging the slow surface and his own team’s batting approach, didn’t shy away from crediting England for their clinical performance.
“It (the nature of the pitch) probably changed about sort of the halfway stage of the England innings, but it’s also one of those things, they played extremely well and when they do have momentum, often it can be a big challenge regardless of the surface to stop. So they put us under a lot of pressure and hit through the line nicely, but I think, as we saw, that became a lot harder to do when guys, other guys came out to bat later on, and it allowed us to stem the flow,” he said.
On a pitch that had nothing for the bowlers, New Zealand missed the raw pace of Lockie Ferguson, who sat out due to a tight left hamstring. He was replaced by Tim Southee, who finally played his first match of this World Cup after spending a considerable amount of time on the bench. However, he failed to make an impact and finished with forgettable figures of 1/70.
New Zealand’s bowling attack is the least of their concerns as they head into the semi-finals to possibly face defending champions Australia. It is the opening pair’s repeated failure and overdependency on the captain that spells doom. They waited for Colin Munro to find his touch, but to no avail. He was then replaced by Henry Nicholls, who is yet to find form. Martin Guptill, one of the finest and most dangerous batsmen in the Kiwi line-up, has been a constant disappointment throughout the tournament. Only 299 runs have been scored between the three openers in 16 innings, invariably putting all the pressure back on their two best batsmen, Williamson and Taylor.
As New Zealand leave the demons of the league stage behind, Williamson said he wants his team to play free and smart cricket and adapt to the conditions better.
“If you are in a knockout stage where it’s the semifinal opportunity where certainly on the day anything can happen. And we know from our perspective that we haven’t put out our best performance yet and we know when we do that without a doubt gives us the best chance of beating anybody. If we are fortunate to be in a semifinal, then we do have a little bit of a break and we need guys to come back together in terms of our first training and have that freshness to go out and play with the freedom,” he said.
