“Very disappointed because in this level you have to take those kinds of catches. End of the day, the [dropped] catches hurt us,” Shahidi said at the post-match presentation ceremony. “The team was doing good, but the fielding, because of that we fell a little bit down.”
New Zealand had got to 210 after 44 overs, but Glenn Phillips, Tom Latham and Mark Chapman teed off at the death, smashing 78 runs in the last six overs.
Latham and Phillips, who had steadied New Zealand with a 100-run stand until the 44-over mark, had both got reprieves and Shahidi said that having set batters in the middle made it tough for them to stop the runs flow.
“Last six overs it was a lot of runs scored by the New Zealand team. Still, we dropped two catches before 40th over. So that partnership went on, the set batsmen were there, so we couldn’t stop them. We tried their best but everything went their way.”
