CHENNAI: New Zealand will be keen to carry forward the momentum of their five-wicket win over Afghanistan when they meet U.A.E. in their second match of the T20 World Cup at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday. The Kiwis began their campaign in the tournament with a crucial win against Afghanistan on Sunday here. The likes of Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips guided the Black Caps to victory, after a early setback inflicted by Afghan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman. In contrast Rachin Ravindra has had a poor build-up to the World Cup. After illness forced him out of the warm-up game against USA in Mumbai, he returned without scoring. He will look to make a more substantial contribution on Tuesday.
Michael Bracewell, who is nursing a calf injury, will continue recovering. New Zealand will likely stick with seam-bowling all-rounder Jimmy Neesham. Finn Allen has been cleared to bat but his shoulder niggle has restricted him from throwing properly in the field.
"It's just having some consistency in what we're trying to do and we want to continue the momentum from that first game. I think from a position of where we were in that game, I think it was a strong powerplay, we were losing a couple of early wickets. But again, with the ball we were good, with the bat we've been good and it's been consistent with the way we want to play our cricket," Luke Ronchi, NZ's batting coach told in the pre-match press conference.
He revealed that the wicket would be different from that of Sunday's. "It's going to be different soil. The boundary size will also change and then we just have to make those sort of adjustments from there," Ronchi said.
Seifert and Phillips are expected to go the way they have been so far. Ronchi explained that its their way of playing, be it getting past tough situations. "I think you've seen Tim, the way he's been playing recently, he's doing a lot of that. It's being positive, it's understanding his game and what he does best. I think you can go into your shell at times if you lose early wickets, but we've also got to trust within our group to understand that different situations of the game will arise, and the guys are out there and they know the best, I guess, starts to take in that position," explained Ronchi.
For UAE, there comes another chance of an upset. They beat the same opposition in 2023 at Dubai and hope to repeat the same.
Pakistan-born UAE skipper Muhammad Waseem said that the knowledge of head-coach Lalchand Rajput about the conditions here will help in their campaign. "Yeah, he (Rajput) has so much experience about India, he is working with the boys, he is telling everything about the pitches and the other things, so it helped us a lot and we are working on that and inshallah you will see tomorrow (Tuesday) the same things he told the boys," said Waseem. The UAE captain is aware that New Zealand have quality spinners and insists that he has plans to counter them. "Our strategy is very simple, we beat them before in UAE, but this time it's a different venue, different tournament, different ground and different game. So we have other plan right now, so yes they (New Zealand) are a good team, they have experience also, but we have prepared ourselves like a champion team, so by god's grace, we will try to play good cricket against them on Tuesday," signed off Waseem.
