PALLEKELE, THURSDAY: Few teams have come to the subcontinent and been successful, but New Zealand is an exception because they have had quite a lot of success overseas in the past few years.
Outlining how New Zealand has been able to adjust to subcontinent conditions and pitches and succeed, bowling coach Shane Jurgensen said, “There’s no doubt Sri Lanka are a very good team and a tough place to play. What we’ve been able to do as a team in the last couple of years is to win series overseas. Many teams have come here and haven’t had success.
“It is really significant for our development that our players who come through our system. We had a few changes between our Test squad and the T20 squad and to see those guys step up it’s been fantastic. It gives us as a team and as an organisation the development where young players stepping up in the outside has been very good,” he said.
Speaking further Jurgensen said, “We got all the guys who are quite experienced. We got players who have played a lot of first-class cricket and probably experienced conditions overseas. We had ‘A’ tours and in New Zealand we got a facility called marquee that allows us to train on grass wickets 12 months a year. That has been a huge success for us to give the guys facilities that would simulate where we would be playing.
“The other one is emerging from the players playing overseas on the subcontinent it is an area where we had to work on as a batting and bowling group. We acknowledged that guys have worked really hard over a long period of time.”
Jurgensen admitted that the first two T20I could have gone either way because of the close finishes.
“It’s been very close for a number of reasons that’s the beauty of T20 cricket. Unfortunately the other night two boys crashed into each other. It was a fantastic catch but unfortunately landed on the boundary. In a matter of inches the whole game could have changed.
“Sri Lanka has played really well maybe it’s just been little periods of the game where we’ve been able to execute with the ball or with the bat. We had those partnerships with our batting. Good to see Colin de Grandhomme step up and Tom Bruce in the last game. With wickets in hand we had the ability to chase down the score. In the first game similar sort of things happened with bat and ball. It is little things that can happen in T20 cricket, the margins are so small.”
With a 2-0 lead in the series Jurgensen said that New Zealand will be looking to finish the tour on a winning note by winning today’s contest.
“We really enjoyed being in Sri Lanka, lovely country, nice welcome. It’s important for us we’ve just had a deep breath of the game in the series so far. We certainly want to make sure we keep the winning attitude going into tomorrow’s game. We’ll try our best tomorrow but no doubt Sri Lanka will want to put us in a lot of pressure.”
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