New Zealand have made it through to two ODI World Cup finals in back-to-back editions of the tournament, in 2015 and 2019. If they are to keep their chances alive of progressing to another semifinal and eventually a third straight final, then they must win a vital clash against Pakistan at Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday.
One of their leading batters in this tournament – Daryl Mitchell addressed the media on Friday and said that while the game carried a lot of importance for semifinal qualification, it was important for the Blackcaps to treat it as any other match.
“Look, for us, every game in this tournament is vitally important. They’re all worth two points. And for us, again, it’s just showing up and playing the black-cap style of cricket that we want to play.”
“And I’m sure if we can control those little things and do them for long periods of time, then we’ll go a long way to getting some outcomes which we want, which will hopefully mean we’re in the mix coming into the tournament. But yeah, we won’t make it bigger than what it is. We’ll just keep doing what Kiwis do and we’ll see what happens,” Mitchell said on Friday.
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Mitchell, who has been one of the improved batters across all formats of the game in the last few years, said the Kiwis believed in doing their best on the field and did not put a lot of emphasis on the eventual result.
“Yeah, again you play to win games of cricket, and it’s nice to win games. But for us, it’s making sure we do what we do best. And we’re not outcome focused. We never will be. We’ll control the things that we can control.”
“And that stuff will take care of itself if we keep doing our jobs. That’s what we do as Black Caps and as Kiwis and it seems to have worked for a number of years now and we’ll just keep doing what we do and we’ll see what happens,” the batter said on Friday.
The Kiwis have been hit by injuries to numerous players ahead of the match and Mitchell said that there would be more clarity on who would play and who wouldn’t play only on Saturday.
“Look, we’ve obviously got training this afternoon and a number of guys have got to get through fitness tests and pass that and we probably won’t know till tonight and tomorrow morning how they pull up from that, but yeah for us, we back everyone within our squad to have success and do a job for the team”.
Mitchell is New Zealand’s second leading run-getter in the tournament with 346 runs in seven matches at an average of 69.20.
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