New Zealand coach ‘proud’ of his inexperience side’s performance against Pakistan

A day after Pakistan levelled the five-match T20I series against New Zealand by securing a nine-run victory against the visitors, Black Caps’ coach Gary Stead said that he is “proud” of his side’s performance against the hosts.

“I’m very proud of the way our team played,” Stead said while talking to reporters in Lahore.

His remarks come after Pakistan defeated New Zealand in the fifth T20I match to record their second win of the series whose first match was called off due to rain.

Despite the Men in Green thrashing the Black Caps in the second T20I, the Kiwis made a strong comeback to clinch victory in the third and fourth matches.

Expressing satisfaction with his side’s performance, Stead, who will name his squad for June’s World Cup in the United States and Caribbean tomorrow (Monday), said: “We had a disappointing first hit out and where we were soundly beaten but to bounce back from that I thought was really pleasing and I think there’s a few young guys that have certainly increased their stocks over here.”

“Let’s not forget Pakistan only two years ago were world cup finalists and […] for us to compete with them I think was really, really pleasing for us,” he added.

The Black Caps coach stressed that all players in the international set-up needed to keep working even if they missed out on the World Cup squad on Monday given that replacements were likely to be needed at some stage.

“We’ve obviously got a number of guys in the Indian Premier League (IPL) that will either join us when they get knocked out of the IPL or join us immediately after that when we travel to the West Indies,” he said.

“So the guys will still be working hard. There’ll be a number of fringe players who miss selection who will want to keep training as well just in case of injury,” he noted.