New Zealand captain Kane Williamson said that he was proud of the team despite the disappointing loss to Australia in the T20 World Cup 2021 final.
The Kiwis were, failed to defend a total of 172. While New Zealand is the ICC World Test champions, they are yet to lift a white-ball World Cup. They had previously gone down in the 2015 and 2019 50-over finals.
“When you play the game, you win and you lose. These are things that can happen on any day. If you look at the campaign as a whole and the type of cricket that we have been able to play, we are very proud of our efforts throughout this period of time. You get to a final and anything can happen. You (referring to the journalist) mentioned 2019 final, which can be a longer discussion if you have some time. All these different fine lines and results happen.”
“Today, we turned up and played some really good cricket. It wasn’t quite good enough and that’s sort of just the way it goes. For us, it is about still putting our energy into the right areas and trying to build on the positives. You want to win these competitions but so do a lot of the other teams.”
“You look at one game here, one game there and the wins and losses but the bigger picture is the important one. And it is trying to improve as a group. We came here with a mix of experienced and younger players. For a lot of them, it was their first time in a World Cup. They played extremely well and are much better for the experience that they have had. As a cricket team, you keep looking forward at the things that you can improve on.”
Australia was originally scheduled to host the T20 World Cup in 2020 before it was postponed due to COVID-19. The rescheduled event will be held from October 16 to November 13, 2022.