T20 World Cup 2024: "It's been chaotic" - Mitchell Santner's shocking revelation on New Zealand's WC preparations

Mitchell Santner has admitted that New Zealand's preparations for the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 have been far from ideal.

The Black Caps are one of the three teams who have opted against playing any warm-up games ahead of the main competition. England and Pakistan are the other two teams but they recently played a four-match T20I series that concluded on May 30.

Instead of playing any warm-up game, New Zealand have opted for extra training sessions. It is not any tactical move by New Zealand as they were forced to rely on training sessions to prepare for the World Cup because of logistics issues, with players arriving in three batches due to the IPL commitments. They trained in Trinidad before moving to Guyana where they will take on Afghanistan on June 8 to start their campaign.

"It's been a chaotic kind of start with people coming in at different times .It was nice to get home for a few days before travelling with the team to come over here, had a nice little time in Trinidad. One training kind of got rained out. But we are here now in Guyana, a good week or so to get some good prep done for our first game," said Mitchell Santner.

"They always put on a good party in the West Indies. I guess not having any warm-up games and guys coming in at different times, it kind of felt a little distorted. We are here in Guyana, we can really settle in with the tournament starting tomorrow. We can watch a little bit of start and then see what the pitches are going to do, especially in Guyana, and do our prep accordingly for our first game," added the left-arm spinner.

Mitchell Santner on challenges in the 2024 T20 World Cup:

Speaking further, Mitchell Santner opened up on the challenges faced by the teams in the T20 World Cup due to the conditions. The tournament will be played across nine venues - six in the Caribbean and three in the USA. With New Zealand to face the likes of Uganda and Papua New Guinea, Santner stated that the tournament has the element of 'unknown'.

"It's obviously good to watch [the first few games]. I think that's going to be a common theme in the World Cup, you know, different places will play very differently," he said. "Traditionally, Guyana can be a little bit slow and Trinidad can be pretty good. America is going to be different. So teams have to assess and adapt quickly throughout the whole tournament.

"It's going to be massive. There is a little bit of an unknown with some of these teams. We obviously know what West Indies are capable of doing, but we are not really sure of the other guys.

"There will be a bit of prep going into each game, scouting, video stuff of what we can get and we just have to stick to what we want to do throughout the whole tournament - every game assess, adapt and the things we talk about leading into each game which is going to be massive," he added.

New Zealand are drawn in Group C along with co-hosts West Indies, Afghanistan, Uganda, and Papua New Guinea. The Black Caps are eyeing their maiden T20 World Cup title this year.