“I don’t think no one even thought that this wicket would play like that,” Hardik advised Star Sports on the post-match presentation. “Both teams kind of got surprised, but think they played better cricket on this [pitch], and that’s the reason the result ended like that.

“Actually, the ball was turning extra with the brand new ball than the previous one. And the way in which it spun and the way in which it was getting [that] bounce, I feel it type of caught us abruptly, however I nonetheless assume we type of pulled it again. We had been nonetheless within the sport until Surya [Suryakumar Yadav] and myself had been batting and clearly the way in which Washy [Washington Sundar] completed. As I stated, it was a shock wicket, however they simply performed little higher cricket than us.”

“I feel it was a shock for everybody concerned – how a lot it type of spun within the second innings,” Santner said. “But yeah, it was an awesome sport, and it was fairly tight in the long run. You noticed loads runs within the ODI collection, so it is good to see the ball spin a bit extra [in the T20Is].”

Washington wasn’t too critical of the pitch and suggested that the way it played was just an aberration. “I feel it was only a one-off sport,” he said at the post-match press conference. “I do not assume that simply because it was spinning a lot, now we have to handle something. Just that one-off sport. Had we acquired off to a flier or perhaps a higher begin, issues would’ve been a lot totally different. Obviously, it did spin, and you will notice such wickets right here and there. Obviously, folks over right here and gamers in our crew have performed on such wickets within the IPL and even within the Indian crew. So, simply that one-off sport the place sure issues did not go our manner and finally, we could not cross the road. They bowled nicely and so they performed with three spinners and even their seamers bowled very nicely.”

Washington reckoned that allrounder Daryl Mitchell’s unbeaten 59 off 30 balls, including a sequence of 7(nb), 6, 6, 4 in the last over turned the game. Left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh kept missing his yorkers and ended up leaking 27 off the over of New Zealand’s innings.

“Obviously, Daryl’s innings was very essential for them and as I stated 150 would’ve been par and we might’ve been very proud of that going inside, however sure he made the distinction by really getting a half-century for himself,” Washington said. “He performed until the top and made the distinction within the final over. I feel these huge overs will occur in T20 cricket and it simply occurred in a few events on this sport and at instances it might occur the place you will notice 15 runs and above in three-four overs. That’s how this format is.”

Santner also acknowledged that Mitchell’s contribution – and making early inroads with the ball – was crucial on that pitch. Santner himself was so un-hittable in the early exchanges that Suryakumar played out a maiden in the last over of the powerplay. The left-arm fingerspinner came away with the most economical figures on the day: 4-1-11-2.

“I do not assume we had been ever secure [with that total],” Santner said. “On-seventy-odd was clearly good, Daryl hit a pair over the rope and he batted extraordinarily nicely and so did Dev [Devon Conway]. We thought we had been in with a sniff at 180 [176 for 6]. We knew we needed to bowl nicely with the facility that India have; so it was good to chip some wickets away on the powerplay, which we struggled for within the one-day collection.”