New Zealand’s Kane Williamson is still hunting for his maiden limited overs title as a captain, having reached the semifinal in the 2016 edition of the T20 World Cup, and narrowly missing out on cricket’s ultimate crown in 2019. Pressure and expectations continue to mount on the Kiwis, who have assembled a brilliant squad.
However, NZ claimed the ICC Test Championship beating India in the final in a few months, which should give them enough confidence to claim another title soon.
The 2021 edition of the T20 World Cup begins on Sunday. The New Zealand captain insisted that the tournament will remain unpredictable and that gaining momentum early on will be important as the room for error is very little.
He also stated that there are a number of match-winners spread across the teams, making the tournament very exciting. He also mentioned that the excitement of T20 cricket coupled with prestige of a world tournament is only going to make the tournament more noteworthy.
“There are going to be a number of challenges along the way. It’s a pretty short tournament so you want to hit the ground running, you want to try and get a bit of momentum early.
But in these world events when you’re playing a different opposition every three days at a different venue there’s some adjustments to make quite quickly.
The match-winners that are in every side that are involved in this tournament means that on any given day anything can happen. It’s a fantastic event and one all teams are looking forward to,”
Williamson said.
New Zealand have drawn themselves alongside India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in the Super 12s. They await two more teams from the group stages and remain one of the favourites alongside India to move through to the semi-final stages.
The Kiwis have done reasonably well in this tournament over the years. They reached the semi-finals last time before losing out to England. They will open their campaign with a clash against Pakistan at Sharjah, which promises to be an exhilarating encounter.
