T20 World Cup | New Zealand back at its happy hunting ground

New Zealand will look to draw comfort from pleasant memories at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium as it aims to seal its berth in the T20 World Cup Super Eight stage when it takes on Canada in its final Group D fixture on Tuesday.

The Black Caps won both their games at this venue — against Afghanistan and the UAE — before being handed a seven-wicket thrashing by South Africa in Ahmedabad.

On paper, the Kiwis shouldn’t be troubled by Canada, but their defeat to the Proteas exposed chinks in their armour. The manner in which the team was outplayed at the Narendra Modi Stadium was similar to the reverses it suffered at the hands of India in the recent bilateral series.

A persistent problem is the lack of variety in the bowling attack. This was exposed by Aiden Markram’s men who chased down a 176-run target with 17 balls to spare. However, Kiwi all-rounder Glenn Phillips allayed any concerns about the worrying pattern.

“If we don’t bowl as well as we did on previous days, we look at that and try to do better the next time.

“It’s professional cricket at the end of the day. Sometimes you’re good, sometimes you’re not. You just hope the gap between the two is a little less each day,” said Phillips.

Canada’s wicketkeeper Shreyas Movva admitted that the squad had a tough time recovering from the loss to the UAE in its previous game. Canada had the UAE struggling at 66 for four in the 13th over of the 150-run chase before letting the game slip away. “It was not easy to get over that defeat. We need to regroup as a team. We had two practice matches in Chennai, where we batted really well. It’s just that we need to come up with good bowling plans,” said Shreyas.