Never Giving Up: How Santner Persevered to Succeed:

Reaching the semifinal or final stage in ICC tournaments is tough in its own right, but facing multiple setbacks at the final stages over and over can become a negative mental hurdle. As India, who hasn’t won an ICC title across formats since 2013 and finally did in 2024 with the T20 World Cup, had to face. India did manage to reach the semifinals, and finals, which were plenty, but they suffered in the end. One of these finals being the World Test Championship clash was New Zealand’s first notable trophy, other than the 2000 Champions Trophy, so their victory was a bit bittersweet for India.

New Zealand managed to win their only white sail title for the first time 25 years ago in Nairobi. They advanced to five other tournament finals and lost, the latest being this match in Dubai. Captain Mitchell Santner, while expressing his disappointment, had some hope and said that his team will eventually come out on top, and they desperately need to change this result driven mentality.

"I think it's all starting to catch up a little, isn't it?" stated Santner following the match. "But you know, if you get into the finals, unless another good team comes along which is also playing some good cricket. So, I guess I was proud with the way we fought tonight. As a team that fights hard, especially in the field, I think we did not give up. And I don’t think we did throughout the inning. So, I guess, it’s bittersweet; you would always want to win one of these and I don’t know how many more chances we’ll get. But I believe this is for us. As a team that plays, especially good cricket, we knew we are in with a real shot today, but I guess a good team beat us.”

This loss marked New Zealand's second consecutive defeat in an ICC elimination match against India after the 2023 ODI World Cup semifinal in Mumbai. Before these matches, the Black Caps did have an advantage with regards to ICC elimination matches against India. Still, New Zealand's failure to win rounds with the more difficult opponents has been a constant pattern.

Australia defeated them in the final match of the 2009 Champions Trophy and the 2015 ODI World Cup. Furthermore, New Zealand did lose the ODI World Cup in 2019 in the Super Over against England. Santner Looking back, he believes New Zealand did have a shot but is uncertain what went wrong in the end.

New Zealand dominated the 2021 T20 World Cup but lost the final to this Trans-Tasman neighbours who claimed their first ever T20 world title against New Zealand in Dubai. The IC cup final on Sunday was yet another lost opportunity for the Kiwis as they went head to head with India in yet another nail biting final. Santner reflects on his side's performance but is left baffled at the lack of piece to the puzzel that the Kiwis are still missing.

“I guess we keep facing India because it seems they are always a challenge. You've got to give them credit as it is a huge game. However, the approach has to be to treat it the same way we have done throughout the tournament. Yes, we were aware the conditions were going to be a bit different from the semi-final, but we were ready for that. I thought we put in a pretty good performance, and we took India deep. But I guess there is always those moments in every game, let alone every final, that is where you can look back at. It was not easy, but in the end I am proud of the group because of how hard we fought.” \n\nUnlike the USA in recent years, the gameplay in the Champions Trophy did not suffer because of dew. Santner's decision to bat first during the toss was different compared to what he did during the league fixture with India. New Zealand’s last game saw them fall short of their target of over 240 runs on a dry and spinning pitch.

However, the strip utilized in the final seemed to be more suitable for batting, but Santner did not regret his decision at the toss.

"I reckon there was probably a bit more turn in the second innings and the pitch was pretty consistent throughout. I suppose coming off the semi-final, we were thinking that if we get a total, we can squeeze the teams, and we did for most parts of the game, but outside of the powerplay, I think with the bat we lost a couple pretty quickly - and then definitely it was a hard wicket to start on and then I think, probably we left maybe 25 out there, and then there may have been a different game."

Indeed the game would have been completely different had New Zealand went past the 275 mark. A score they were indeed aiming to achieve after a strong PowerPlay that yielded 69 runs. However India’s spinners once again put on a show in the middle overs, and Masterclass in New Zealand’s batters also struggled to keep the score ticking as the run rate took a nose dive during this phase. In the end, only Michael Bracewell showing some casual approach was able to take the team past 250 runs.

Santner admitted the middle-overs collapse as a critical moment in the final.

My impression was that the intent with the bat was superb, especially at the start. The powerplay was clearly the best phase to bat. And I think that the way we went about it for the first roughly eight overs or so was outstanding. Then it took some real class from the spin bowlers to kind of really peg us back and make it challenging for the middle phase, I guess. The control that was applied plus the building of pressure when we were talking about the start, was Probably expecting something around 280, 275, but the way they were making us squeeze and build pressure, plus the way Michael Bracewell batted at the end brought us to about 250, even though it was looking less.

New Zealands chances of confidence may have been raised had their spearhead Matt Henry been available. New Zealand's total may have seemed slightly under-par. However, owing to a shoulder strain suffered during the semifinals, the pacer failed to recover fully and consequently had to miss out on the final. As we all know, Matt Henery has well-documented dominance over India’s top-order, notably in the league game during this tournament and the 2019 World Cup semifinal.

“This is a big match and not having my strike bowler was a key setback,’’ Santner lamented.

Matty is a great team man, and even though he didn't play the event because of his injury, I feel for him because he was clearly devastated after the match. We initially said to each other that we should try and win it for him, but it was difficult for us as well. We came so far only to be let down by what he tried to do for the game, but in the end, he didn’t want to make it so we could get it.

He certainly did everything humanly possible to prepare for the game, but unfortunately for us, he wasn’t quite there. It was tough for us as well, but of course for him, it was pretty challenging as well. The main event was pretty hard and tough for him and for us. Santner didn’t hold back his praise for Indian captain Rohit Sharma, who, along with scoring a brilliant fifty, was also awarded Player of the Match. Prior to the Rohit scored the big match winning score, Santner had noticed he went a few games not scoring any mini half centuries. Santner couldn’t help but think how much of an impact Rohit’s batting at the front makes in the game considering the Indian captain was able to go much deeper than expected that day.

“I would imagine, if someone asked Rohit at the start of the tournament which match he wanted to score the most runs in, I think it would be the finals. But you see the way he approaches it, he is quite intimidating to bowlers. His approach is quite aggressive. I think him and Shubman dealt with it well. I think Shubman is willing to wait for a bad ball, while Rohit is quite comfortable smashing bowlers off their lengths. And, with the way he goes about it, you could fail a couple of times, but if you could give your team a great start, particularly on a sluggish wicket, you kind of put yourself ahead of the game. So they had good bat powerplay and then, you know, I suppose we are quite on the back foot from there because he is most likely a hundred for none. So, yes, with the way he goes about it, he could fail from time to time, but my word, he can single handedly turn one game and that’s how he played tonight.”

There was a period of time when New Zealand looked lethal and threatening during the game, but Rohit’s assault and century opening stand still remains one of the most aggressive parts of the game.

Following the initial break, India dropped from 105-0 to 122/3 within about 46 deliveries while chasing. The Indian spinners, Santner and Bracewell, took the wickets effortlessly as described. during the break, New Zealand's captain was spotted talking vigorously, and everyone was stunned by what he said.

I have made all efforts to secure the dismissal of Rohit Sharma, and so far, things have played out as planned. Their batting performance and partnership put them in a good position at the start, but I feel that we may have conceded more than we intended to between the mid stages. The new batters seemed to struggle which in turn helped them against the older players or the more senior members. The new batsmen didn’t seem to have it easy either, as we discovered the other day. Thus, our plan still is to try to be a little more aggressive with the ball. You could do something that alters the entire dynamic of the game with a simple catch or a run out. And I think we were still able to chip wickets out. For a short span of time right up until Rohit got out, you could feel that the game was rolling in our favor. Having to move within a run’s reach of 80 on that wicket is incredible, so I believe that was a pretty good knock too.