Daniel Vettori spoke with pride but disappointment after the BLACKCAPS came within millimeters of a historic victory at Westpac Stadium.
The Australians claimed the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy after Andrew Symonds’ immense 156, but the BLACKCAPS teamwork shone through.
Determined efforts all the way down the order contributed to the BLACKCAPS edging to within three runs of victory.
Their tenacity was displayed in the final play of the game, with Kyle Mills despairing dive for the line.
It was a mark of the team’s performance that the captain was disappointed not to have won the game.
Talking to BLACKCAPS.co.nz columnist on Sky Sport, Vettori said: “I’m pretty proud about the way we pulled ourselves back. It was a great game.
“It was all set up by Lou Vincent and the way he played and the late innings guys did such a great job.
“(Chris) Cairns, (Jacob) Oram and (Brendon) McCullum almost got us home and we probably should have finished it off in the end.
“There’s a massive amount of disappointment. The bit of fielding to remove Brendan McCullum was probably the difference.”
Despite the sizeable 323 target set, the skipper said he thought it was an achievable goal.
And his faith was so nearly proven.
“We’ve seen Pakistan almost chase it down once before here and we’ve seen some big scores hauled in,” he said.
“We thought we could do it and we had a plan and it worked this time round. How we came out at the start got us a chance to win the game.
“I think the pride is something that needs to be related to them. We should have won the game but didn’t.”
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