Brendon McCullum
The BLACKCAPS wicketkeeper-batsman talks about the victory over the Scottish, Daniel Vettori's injury and being percieved as underdogs.
On being disappointed by the match result…
“Yes, absolutely. Any time you come out of a game without a win you’re obviously disappointed. I thought we bowled and fielded incredibly well - a far better improvement from the other day but I guess our batting was always struggling for momentum right through the innings. We never quite had that big over. You need one or two big overs in any twenty20 game regardless of how big or small the total is. Frustrating from that point of view but I thought there were some good points that came out of the match. We’ve got to try to look at those as much as possible and not dwell on the negatives because we have a game in a couple of days time that’s going to be incredibly important to us.”
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On playing Ross Taylor continuing to play after the injury…
“Yes I do. Actually it was my decision a guy like that is capable at even 80% of hitting the ball out of the park so I wasn’t asking him to run to much. It was just a matter of trying to swing from the hip and if he was able to get one or two over the road then that could have been the difference in the game. I certainly didn’t think it would affect him too much. I’m not sure on his status at the moment - I’ve only just walked off the field so will need to go and check.”
On the teams injuries…
“We’ve picked up a few niggles over the past few weeks. We’ve seen tonight our side has changed a lot from the one we saw the other day. It did present an opportunity for a few of the other guys to step up. I thought they were fantastic today so again that’s another thing we’ve got to look at if we are unable to pick from our whole quota then the guys who do go out on the field will have to do the job. We’ll find out in 24 hours whether [injured players] will be available for the rest of the tournament, the next game or not at all.”
On being pleased with his own performance…
“Yes and no. I would have loved to have been there at the end. I got out at a time where I would have been able to accelerate during the next over, so it’s frustrating. It’s nice to get some runs but disappointing when you bat the majority of the innings and then you stumble short of chasing 130.”
On the next steps for the team leading up to the Super 8 stage…
“Make sure we can get the guys as fit as we can and to be a decision on the selections and then look at the surfaces and the opposition and try and come up with the best game plan we can. I think the last game we saw with our batting, on the field and with ball in hand the way we want to play so if we can marry those two as the tournament progresses then hopefully we’ll give ourselves an opportunity.”
On the momentum being set back…
“I think considering we had three guys come back into the mix today and took on an unchanged South African side and competed the way we did it’s a small step forward. Obviously not winning hurts us a little bit but I think the confidence will still be there and we’ve got a big job to do in the next five or six days to be able to qualify for the semi finals.”
