LONDON: New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson had no concerns over his side being considered as underdogs for Sunday’s World Cup final against hosts England. “A lot of people say that on a number of occasions which is great and I think England, rightly so, deserve to be favourites,” said Williamson.
“Coming into this tournament from the start, they were favourites and they’ve been playing really good cricket. But whatever dog we are, it’s just important that we focus on cricket and we have seen over the years that anybody can beat anybody regardless of the breed of dog,” he smiled.
Williamson said England’s top-order batsmen, especially the openers Jason Roy and Bairstow, could take the game away.
“Those two have been fantastic throughout this whole competition and prior as well. But, there are a number of other parts to perhaps playing in a World Cup Final. But there is a huge amount of respect for the match-winners that they have within their side, obviously the top of the order,” he said.
Williamson said he would make sure the outcome of Sunday’s match doesn’t affect the team. “Any experience that you have is an opportunity to learn and sometimes tough experiences, being on the wrong side of results, can sometimes slap you in the face and give you a glaring lesson. If you ignore that, I don’t think that is a positive thing, so treating both of those, the outcomes with respect and trying to learn from them to be better as a group and as an individual, I think is the best part,” he added.
Williamson said Lord’s wicket which looked pretty green on Friday could encourage seam bowlers from both sides. “But we don’t know what the wicket has in store,” he said.
