Kane Williamson was quick to admitted that New Zealand were outplayed in all three departments of the game. Fielding, which is one of the strong points of the former world number one team in T20 format, let them down on Wednesday in the first T20I against India in New Delhi.
Three catches dropped and other fielding let offs gave India the much needed lukc. Opener Shikhar Dhawan was dropped in the second over by Mitchell Santner and he went on to score 80 runs. Rohit Sharma also scored the same number of runs and got a life as Tim Southee dropped him.
"The conditions are tough to prepare for exactly but given the experience within our side, were certainly not using that as an excuse," Williamson said. "Most of the time when you come here and play in the evening, there's dew as there is on a number of other grounds that guys have played at. Not going to sugarcoat it but we were below par and came up against what is a very good Indian side that played very well in all the areas.
"Like I mentioned, we were outplayed in all the areas, fielding included, which is something we pride ourselves on and something we need to be much better at in Twenty20 cricket. That made the difference as we saw today that proved to be vital in a lot of ways. Guys went on to score big scores for their side in the Indian team and 200 on that surface was a very big total," he added.
New Zealand were put under pressure from the start of their chase. Ashish Nehra bowled a decent first over before Yuzvendra Chahal came up and replicated. Two early wickets and New Zealand were pushed on the back-foot and India team gained the upper hand
"We were under pressure pretty much from the word go. Losing early wickets puts you on the backfoot and on the surface, there it was stopping and turning. Trying to accelerate the run rate when you are under pressure is not an easy task. That was the nature of the batting innings. We were never able to get momentum in our batting against them to try and get close to the total. Every time we attempted to increase the run rate, we lost wickets. A lot of it is our fault and then India bowled very well as well so the combination of that certainly didnt allow us to get close to the total."
New Zealand were, as Williamson said, outplayed by India. They were chasing a target of 203 runs but Indian spinners contained the runs. Even the pacers were not as expensive as the New Zealand ones who went for over 11 runs per over.
"Theyre both very good bowlers (Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar). Because they got off to a good start, we were on the backfoot. The surface was seaming around, offering a bit to the seamers, but we had to have a defensive approach to try and combat their aggression because they were putting us under pressure. I guess the other side of that coin is when the bowling side is on top and theyre able to hit the wicket and use the surface like we saw Bumrah and the others in their bowling attack, which was very difficult. That's Twenty20 cricket. You do need to be aggressive to try and take on bowlers and weve seen Bhuvi and Bumrah throughout not just the one-dayers, but for a long time in the IPL. Ive been fortunate to play with Bhuvi and against Bumrah and theyre the most consistent bowlers in world cricket.
"It's also sort of the nature of T20 cricket. It's such an aggressive format that no matter who you are, you can go for a few runs. It is fickle in terms of the results and how guys approach it. Batters need to be aggressive. If they come off, then the bowler sort of loses it like we saw tonight. India batted very, very well and put our bowlers under pressure. But both of those bowlers (Boult and Southee), as we know, are very good operators and will look to make amends going into the next game. Not just them, all of us want to be better in all three areas of the game," Williamson concluded.
