BLACKCAPS captain Daniel Vettori is not entertaining thoughts of satisfaction after beating tournament favourites South Africa, instead focusing on tomorrow’s semi final match against Sri Lanka.
“This is the semi final of the World Cup so everyone is ecstatic to be here but we want to make sure it hasn’t met our expectations – we are here to win a semi final,” a bullish Vettori said at the captain press conference at R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo.
“We need to move on quickly from the match against South Africa. It was obviously a tremendous win for us but Sri Lanka is a completely different prospect.
“We have to have a different game plan – a better game plan - if we are to succeed here so we have passed that game. We are proud of our achievement but all the focus in on this one."
The cricketing world have little faith in the BLACKCAPS upsetting Sri Lanka at home with history suggesting a semi final loss is all they are capable of.
When probed about the teams inability to make the final Vettori replied, “I look at the positive slant about making past semi finals. There’s talk about us not going further but it’s an amazing achievement for a small country.
“In our recent experience of the ICC Champions Trophy where we make the final so we can look at that as a starting point - we are here to win.
“We have high expectation of ourselves and it’s irrelevant what other people think. It’s about what’s going through our heads.”
Vettori admitted he was surprised a new pitch wasn’t prepared with the same on used in Sri Lanka’s ten wicket win over England.
“For a World Cup semi final we thought it would be mandatory to prepare a fresh wicket but obviously not.”
