Two finely honed teams meet for a place in the fina

DELHI: New Zealand who has never reached the final of a World Twenty20 tournament will be looking forward to doing so when they meet 2010 champions England in the first semi-final of the 2016 World T20 at the Feroz Shah Kotla grounds here on Wednesday.

In the group matches New Zealand have performed like a well oiled machine reading the sub continent conditions and the pitches so well that they have got the better of all their opponents to be the only team to come through the qualifying stages unscathed.

On that record alone New Zealand could consider themselves as favourites to beat England. However captain Kane Williamson was pretty optimistic about his team’s chances. “In terms of my perspective and the coach’s we will pick horses for courses against the opposition. That philosophy won’t change. In terms of favourites I think it’s impossible to give someone a favourite tag in T-20 cricket,” said Williamson at the pre-match press conference.

“The nature of this game is such that any given team that plays best wins. Anyone can beat anyone. Going into the tournament both pools were very strong and everyone had the desire to go and believed they could. Here we are for the knockout game and the guys are looking forward to it.”

Williamson said that he was aware of the threat that England possess to his team.

“I am not surprised at all. Having played bit of county cricket, I have seen all these guys quite a lot. How good players they are. They are a big threat,” said Williamson.

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson

“We saw that in the ODI series that we played in England. When I saw the team on paper I knew it will be a tough challenge, you need to play tough cricket. I am not surprised that they are in the semi-finals. There are so many good cricketers in that country you try to improve as a side England have done that and they are very much contenders.”

England have a slight advantage on the pitch and conditions having played their last two group games against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka at Delhi, whereas for New Zealand they have played all over India.

“I suppose England have been fortunate to play in these conditions a couple of times, but in T-20 anything can happen,” said Williamson. “Coming into this tournament in both pools each team was confident that they will go all the way. I am sure England is no different. We have seen more of India than most opposition’s. It’s one of those things just happened by coincidence. Guys have just embraced the flights and enjoyed the variety of hotels.”

Williamson said that he was going with an open-minded approach to the semi-finals.

“My perspective I am trying to do the best job I can with many other leaders who assist us. It’s important to come up with sound game plans and ultimately it’s up to the players to execute those plans. We have done that so well in this tournament. Going into this tournament, it’s a big exciting game,” Williamson said.

England captain Eoin Morgan rated New Zealand as the team that has played the best cricket in the group stages and is looking ahead for a tough game.

“We’ve got a tough game tomorrow against a really strong New Zealand side, which have played probably the best cricket of the group stages. So we’re going to have to come up with a very strong game of cricket tomorrow to beat them,” said Morgan.

“We’ve come into this tournament with an open-mindedness about the conditions we’re coming up against, and that’ll be no different tomorrow. We’re playing on a fresh wicket which has a really good covering of grass. It’s changed over the last few games a little bit.”

“We’ve become quite settled in Delhi, and it’s been good to us. We’ve had fantastic support and following. Ultimately we’ve grown used to the pitch a lot more than the first game we were here, which was probably a little bit drier,” he said.

Having been in two semi-finals before Morgan said what England had learnt is that in getting to the knockout stage in any tournament means that you have done the hard work.

“It is almost now that you have earned a licence to go out and express yourself as much as you can. To me that attitude means getting the best out of yourself. If you have guys coming out who are very relaxed about performing and performing on the big stage that takes a lot of weight off your shoulders,” Morgan said.

“The guys that we’ve selected have done outstandingly well and shown a great amount of attitude in learning. It’s not always easy to come up against very strong sides who knock you back on a day-to-day basis, but every question that’s been asked of us we’ve come back with either a counter-answer or a more aggressive option,” he said.

The two sides have played each other in 13 T20Is with England winning eight, New Zealand four and one no-result.