A team need not always play the perfect game to win but can adapt to the conditions as New Zealand showed during their semi-final win against India, coach Gary Stead said ahead of their World Cup final against England on Sunday.
“We don’t have to play the perfect game. What we have to do is to be able to adapt to conditions in front of us. Working out that 240 (vs India) is a good score is the strength the guys have, especially the middle order. Guys like Kane, Ross, Tom Latham, they have a lot of experience,” Stead said during a media conference.
Stead said that there are no underdogs in a final even if it means playing England at the Lord’s. “I don’t know who is the underdog here. That is for the media to say. We are going in with a 50-50 chance and we need to be a little bit better than England on Sunday,” he said. “There is pressure on both teams. The exciting thing is that both teams have not won the World Cup and both have experience of finals. But since England and India were looked at as winners, maybe there is more pressure on them,” Stead said.
On the eve of the final, Stead said that the Kiwis who were a part of the 2015 final would be able to tell what not to repeat this time. “What have we learnt from that experience … there are a lot of similarities between the two occasions. We have seven guys who had experience of being part of that squad playing then.
“But at the end of the day, it’s a game of cricket — there will be one team which will be happy and one team which will be disappointed. We are trying to keep it as realistic as we can,” the coach said.