India vs New Zealand | We Needed Early Wickets to Get Ahead: Kane Williamson

A score in excess of 200 would mostly have captains and teams quite happy, but for New Zealand and Kane Williamson it wasn’t enough on a small ground in Eden Park against India.

Williamson’s captaincy is on the line currently after the Test series hammering at the hands of the Australians.

“There’s a lot of positives out there for us. We know coming to Eden Park it’s hard to defend and there was a bit of dew and obviously India showed their class. We knew batting first we had to get a good total on the board. Being a second-used surface, it was a high scoring game,” a dejected Williamson said at the presentation ceremony.

“Credit to India for the way they played. But with ball in hand, if we could get three or four early, we could have got ahead of the game.”

New Zealand were almost in with a chance when they picked up three quick wickets after some initial fielding howlers let Virat Kohli and KL Rahul off.

“Taking the pace off seemed to be working okay, but it was tough to execute because India put us under pressure constantly during their innings.”

The Kiwis’ next chance to rectify this comes on Sunday in the second T20I at the same ground and Williamson hopes they can do better.

“We found ourselves defending for most of the second half. We have to recover there. It’s always important at this ground that when you start well you go on and finish well.”