New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner expressed his thoughts on the defeat and called the result “bitter and joyful” after the final defeat against India in the final in Dubai on Sunday.
A half-century from Captain Rohit Sharma, the fine knocks of Shreyas Iyer and the exquisite spells of the spinners, especially Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav, defeated the third ICC championship trophy in Dubai on Sunday.
At the match press conference, the left arm spinner praised his team for challenging India throughout the game, but also admitted that they had let the game slip away several times
Santner quoted the ICC as saying: “In the end, it was bittersweet. We had a good side in the final. We sometimes challenged India throughout the game, which was pleasant. There were hours we kept it away from us.”
He added: “I am very proud of this group and we have gone through so many ways throughout the game. We have a lot of experienced players and some young players on the team. It’s very good to have different people at different times throughout the game, and it’s very good.”
Additionally, the 33-year-old also expressed kindness to the man in Blue Captain Rohit Sharma, who was awarded the game for his outstanding performance in the championship game. He scored a great knock on the door with 76 runs from 83 balls, with seven boundaries and three maximum boundaries.
“We are fighting a very good team today. We spend most of the game playing, we beat 20 runs there, and Rohit Sharma’s way of playing took it away from us.”
Sandner refused to be frustrated with another defeat in the final of the match, noting: “If you get to the final, you’re going to compete with another pretty good team who’s still playing some cricket. I’m proud of the way the fight was going tonight. We’re proud of ourselves not giving up, and I don’t think we did.”
He concluded: “You always want to win one of them, I don’t know how many opportunities we’ll get, but that’s ours. We’re playing some good cricket.
