Chennai, Oct 19: New Zealand spinner Mitchell Santner feels assessing the conditions in Dharamsala and countering an in-form Rohit Sharma will be vital as they eye the “tough” task of beating India at home during their World cup clash on Sunday.
New Zealand have done well to adapt to the different conditions in the World Cup. The Black Caps, who have won all four of their games in the tournament so far, have played in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chennai.
They will now fly to Dharamsala for the much-anticipated game against India, who are on a three-match winning streak.
“We know they’re going to obviously be a challenge at home. They look pretty tough to beat. We’ll have to do our assessment in Dharamsala – see what the wicket’s going to do.
“There has been a little pace and bounce. But whether that is the case when we play them, we’ll see,” Santner said after New Zealand’s 149-run win over Afghanistan on Wednesday.
Rohit has looked in imperious form at the top, playing brilliant knocks of 86 against Pakistan and 131 against Afghanistan to fashion huge victories.
“I think power play with the ball is going to be very important. The way Rohit’s kind of getting them off to a flyer. And so, I think we have to do similar stuff to what we’re doing.
“I guess you’re never going to play a perfect game so for us, it’s two points. That’s what we look to get out of every game depending on who we’re playing and what we’ve done well through this tournament is being able to adapt to different conditions.
“Every pitch we’ve played on has been slightly different. We have to treat it very similarly leading into the game against India, assess the conditions, see what’s going to work the best with ball, with bat, build those partnerships and try to take them deep and see what happens.” Searching for their maiden title, New Zealand have so far beaten holders England, Netherlands, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, in the tournament.
“We’ve just got to kind of keep doing us, keep focused on the things we want to and how we want to play. And obviously, it’s nice to be in this position to lead into this game.
“We obviously know it’s such a long tournament, and one loss isn’t going to hurt you if you win the rest, or you kind of look at that at the start.” The Kiwis survived an early scare with the bat to post a respectable total of 288 for 6 and successfully defended it to secure a win over Afghanistan.Santner believes the 144-run partnership between skipper Tom Latham and Glenn Phillips was the turning point.“We know that every game is a tough game. Afghanistan today was no different. We started off pretty well, but there were moments in the game where we were battling a little bit.“It was on a knife edge for a while, so it was nice to get to a score. I guess that partnership between Tom and GP was massive for us, and then it – pressure with the new ball always helps.” (PTI)
