NZ vs IRE: “I Guess We’re Still In A Pretty Good Position”- Mitchell Santner Confident Of New Zealand's Semi-final Chances Despite Loss Against England

New Zealand’s left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner was confident in his team’s capacity to recover after facing defeat against England and be ready for their opponent Ireland in the final Super 12 game. He believes that a victory will almost certainly ensure their advancement to the semifinals.

New Zealand’s net run rate is healthy enough that they will almost certainly qualify for the semi-finals by beating Ireland by any margin in their final group game.

In contrast, Australia’s title defense is hanging by a thread at home: they either need to beat Afghanistan and hope England loses to Sri Lanka in Sydney or thrash Afghanistan to ensure they surpass England on NRR.

We Have To Be Firing To Beat Ireland: Mitchell Santner

Ireland has already caused a few surprises in the tournament, defeating West Indies to get to the Super 12 stage and then defeating England last week, but Mitchell Santner believes New Zealand will succeed.

“I guess we’re still in a pretty good position,” he said.

“We’ll obviously reflect on tonight, what went well, what didn’t go so well, and move on to Ireland in a few days time on a different wicket, different place.

“They’ve shown us they’re a pretty quality side, so we have to be firing to beat them.”

New Zealand Aware Of Ireland’s Capabilities: Mitchell Santner

With one set of games left, New Zealand leads Group 1 ahead of England and Australia due to a higher net run rate. Only the top two competitors move on to the semifinals.

With a victory over Ireland, New Zealand, who are now fourth but are still in the running, might advance.

“We’ve seen throughout this tournament there’s been upsets,” said Mitchell Santner. “I guess the nature of T20 cricket, if one or two guys step up on the day, they can kind of turn games.

“So we know Ireland are a very good team. We’re not sure what Adelaide is going to give us, but we’ll do our prep and see what we’re going to get against and format a plan against a pretty good side.”

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