The BLACKCAPS face Afghanistan on Sunday 9 June at 12:30am (NZT) in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019.
New Zealand might not have been as clinical as they would have liked but fast bowler Matt Henry welcomed the pressure they were put under by Bangladesh.
Following a comprehensive win over Sri Lanka in their ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 opener, the BLACKCAPS were pushed a great deal harder at the Oval by Bangladesh before emerging with a two-wicket victory.
Henry took four wickets to add to three against Sri Lanka, and is the top wicket-taker at this early stage of the tournament.
However, despite restricting Bangladesh to 244, New Zealand endured some nervy moments in their chase and Henry believes that will serve them well going forward.
He said: “It was great to be put under that pressure and come out of the other side of it with the win. You want to win games of cricket and we got the job done.
“It’s not ideal losing as many wickets as we did but they are allowed to bowl well. At the end of the day, we got the chase done.
“They are a very dangerous side when they get a sniff. When they get a couple of wickets they can really put the squeeze on and I thought they did that really well.
“They identified that they could dry up runs and put the pressure on and they did that well but thankfully we managed to put the partnerships we needed to get across the line.”
Having seen off Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, New Zealand will now turn their attentions to Afghanistan at Taunton on Saturday in another day/night clash.
Like Bangladesh, Afghanistan’s spinners have played an important role so far and Henry admitted the BLACKCAPS would have to adjust to the conditions in Somerset.
He added: “First and foremost we had to try to get the win here and then we have a new challenge coming up against Afghanistan in different conditions. We’ll have to adapt and bring our A game to put our best foot forward to get another win.
“We’ll soon find out once we get down there (if it will be a trial by spin). We’ll go down and assess the conditions but Afghanistan have shown they are a dangerous side so we will be going down there with the utmost respect trying to get that win.”
