Centurion (South Africa), Mar 15: Smarting under a sound seven-wicket thrashing by India, New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming blamed the approach of his team for its "stuttered" World Cup campaign and said it never looked like wanting to win the trophy. "It was a stuttered campaign. It is still stuttering. We are still gasping," Fleming said referring to the team's fate hinging on the outcome of the Sri Lanka-Zimbabwe match today.
"We never got into the stride all the way through. We never had the feeling that we were on a run or into a rhythm and that we wanted to win the world cup," Fleming said as the team's chances of progressing in the premier tournament took a nosedive following the defeat to India yesterday.
"I think we were always scraping. We had individual performances that were worthy but apart from that we never had the feeling of winning the trophy," he said. Fleming also slammed the team for its "dire performance" in the must-win game against India.
"It was not a collapse. It was a bad performance all through, starting from ball number two. It was a dire performance on such an important occasion and on such a good batting strip," the kiwi skipper said. New Zealand sneaked into the Super Six stage on luck after rains forced South Africa and Sri Lanka to split points in the last league game in pool B. "Last time we were pretty close to packing our bags. I guess we should now go through the same routine," said the disappointed skipper.
Bureau Report