Despite their recent spectacular success across all forms, New Zealand seamer Tim Southee has to be more relaxed with his team’s status as an underdog.
After finishing as finalists in both the 2015 and 2019 50-over World Cups, the Black Caps were named inaugural World Test Championship winners in June after defeating India in the final. The Kiwis were unheralded before the T20 World Cup campaign. Still, they came back from a loss to Pakistan to qualify from the Super 12s with four straight wins before defeating heavily-favoured England in the semi-finals, reports Live Cricket Score.
Victory over Australia, who, like New Zealand, has never won this competition, would crown a great year for a team that has become accustomed to being a regular figure at global championships.
“You hear all the outside chatter, but as a group, we just try to keep pretty level,” said Southee, who has bowled in all six New Zealand matches and has yet to yield 30 runs in an innings. “We don’t punish ourselves when we lose a game. Consider the first game against Pakistan. We weren’t far off. We didn’t strive to reinvent the wheel; we realised we needed to make minor changes and improve in specific areas. We’ve done a good job of assessing the situation. We’ve had to switch between locations, day games, and night games, but everyone has been quite consistent and fast to adapt. That’s something we’ve done throughout the tournament.”
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