ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

October 26, 2022

Gary Stead

Melbourne Cricket Ground

New Zealand

Post Match Media Conference

Q. With Ireland winning today obviously, this group continues to become messier. Does that make your win against Australia look even more impressive to have those two points in the bank and the positive net run rate?

GARY STEAD: Yeah, I definitely think that helps. Obviously what happened in the Ireland game does, I think, make it a little bit unpredictable about what might happen, and I think it also shows there's no easy games right throughout the tournament either. We've seen a number of surprises, I think, through the qualifying stage, and it goes into the main stage as well. I think that's good for cricket. It does make our pool a little bit unpredictable.

Q. Just wanted to ask about the Tri-Series that took place before this World Cup in Christchurch. Bangladesh and Pakistan were happy to get the practise in as well. Did you get enough out of that series? Do you think conditions here are similar enough for you to value that as a useful experience?

GARY STEAD: It was definitely useful for us, no doubt about it. When you come off not playing, I guess, cricket for -- I think were a couple of weeks, then getting the T20 team back together was good because our last series before that was West Indies.

So getting the World Cup squad together was good. We just had to manage our players through that. We had five games in seven days. It was a reasonably hectic period, with travel and a couple of warmup games here as well made it very busy.

We certainly managed or tried to manage our players through that period of time, but definitely very worthwhile for us. I know the players certainly enjoyed the Tri-Series sort of format as well.

Q. Just looking at what happened in that game between England and Ireland and knowing there are showers forecast for Friday as well, does that -- does it give you some things to think about, I guess, in approaches to games, and it can be easy to slip up if you get things slightly wrong?

GARY STEAD: Yeah, that's the nature of T20 cricket is one or two players can change the game and one or two balls or one or two overs can change the game as well.

For us what happens on Friday doesn't really have that much bearing on the way we go about things. We just all go take each match as it comes. We try and be clear with our planning what we're trying to achieve out of the game and then go play the game and move on very, very quickly to the next one.

After today, for example, we'll be doing our scouting for Sri Lanka tomorrow and straight on with things.

Q. Specifically with the chance of rain shortened games, do you have specific plans to go, okay, in that kind of situation, we're going to do this, or if it's a five-over game, we're going to do this?

GARY STEAD: We certainly talked about that tonight when it looked like there was the chance of shortened games. So Kane and I had a discussion whether the team we were going to start with would continue to start.

But until you actually get that call from the umpires that it's going to be this period of time, we were still working on, even at the start, that it might have been a 17 or an 18-over game, which wouldn't have changed too much for us then.

Q. I guess just on Ireland beating England today, just your thoughts on Ireland as a team and having knocked over one of the tournament favourites, I guess.

GARY STEAD: Well, they're making a habit of doing it, I guess, when you look at world tournaments. It's certainly not the first one that have had over, I guess, a major nation. They're a dangerous team. We went there recently and had a fantastic series against Ireland in ODIs and T20 cricket.

Certainly today showed there's no easy games and you have to be on your game the whole time. As I said earlier, I think it's great for world cricket. I think the more teams that can come and be competitive probably gives hope to those that are still trying to get to the stage of where Ireland are at right now as well.

Q. Just in such weather conditions, the playing conditions become a concern when you know that you might have to field a team for five or seven overs?

GARY STEAD: Look, the playing conditions at the end of the day, it comes down to the umpire's interpretation of whether it's fit to play or not. I thought today was always on the marginal side. It's great, we're trying to play cricket, and that's what it's all about. We're trying to entertain the fans and stuff as well.

I think it was definitely on the wet side out there, and actually on the perimeters it was quite muddy in places too.