Gareth Hopkins
The BLACKCAPS wicketkeeper batsman talks about this good form, the must win game and surprising the Aussies.
On your personal performances…
“I’m happy with my performances to a point but at numbers seven your goals are to finish the job and win games and I haven’t been doing that so although I’m happy with my starts I still need to kick on and finish those games.”
“Like last night I should have kicked on and in another five overs we could have got 270 or 280 and put them under real pressure.”
On what you hoped to achieve coming in…
“In the last five years I’ve been back up to Brendon so whenever there’s a series or a tour that’s on I’ve always been ready to go just in case Brendon gets injured.”
“I think carrying on from the Twenty20, I felt pretty comfortable in the team with the intensity of international so I wasn’t too far out. I was only a few days out from that so I was pretty confident going in.”
Related Links
On having a defined roll in the Twenty20 and 50 over game…
“I’ve been pretty comfortable with my roll for the last few years and also comfortable with adapting to any roll. I think domestically I’ve been trying to get up higher in the order to put a bit more pressure on my batting and I think that’s the output.”
On being down 2-1…
“We’re still pretty confident and we know that the next two games are must win games but I think if we perform how we know we can perform we do push the Aussies and we beat them. I think we’re pretty confident and we need two from two now.”
On Eden Park suiting the BLACKCAPS…
“I think so. There are some funny angles and I like it for the areas that I hit. I think Dan likes it as well – he was outstanding in that last game. Most of our grounds here are a bit smaller than what they are used to. I think it shows that you are never out of the game so we believe that.”
On the last couple of weeks building your confidence…
“I haven’t really performed at international level so that’s always been in the back of your mind. I always believed and was always confident but then to actually perform to a degree and to finish off games.”
On why it clicked the other day….
“Mentally I have been working on a few things. I have been a lot more confident this year. That’s domestic form as well. I’ve been happy with my game plans. I had a good winter over in India with the ‘A’ team and that reaffirmed my batting plans. I think that being part of the Twnety20 has helped. I lifted the intensity you need internationally from domestic. I felt quite comfortable with that and I’m just carrying that on.”
On catching the Australian’s by surprise…
“That’s fair. They wouldn’t have seen me so they wouldn’t have as strong a plan as they might have against some of our other batters. That’s always going to be interesting because I’m sure after seeing the last couple of games they’ll have some better plans so it’s up to me to stick to my game plan or just tweak them a little bit and try to do it better.”
On playing for four first class teams (Norhtern Districts, Canterbury, Otago and Auckland)…
“The boys give me a bit of grief about that. I just got it five minutes ago from Peter Ingram asking me if I was going to come down to CD next year. I’m quite happy in Auckland, captaining Auckland. We’ve got a pretty good thing going on up there with some young guys coming through so it will be nice to see the development of those guys coming through and developing them into BLACKCAPS.”
