England's Jacks & Rehan stun NZ in T20 WC thriller, says Santner

"Good match, a tight match. The way England kind of paced that chase and then obviously the way Will Jacks and Rehan kind of put the finishing touches, it was good batting," Santner said after the loss at the R. Premadasa Stadium.

Chasing 160, England recovered from early blows to seal the game with three balls remaining, thanks largely to a late surge from Rehan Ahmed and Will Jacks. Santner admitted there were moments New Zealand could look back on.

"We made our lives easy if we won, but again we played a pretty good game. There were moments both with the bat and the ball that you could probably look back on that kind of turned the game on us a little bit, but credit to England the way they played."

New Zealand had earlier posted 159/7 after being asked to bat. They powered to 54 without loss in the Power-play, with Finn Allen and Tim Seifert putting England's attack under pressure. But wickets through the middle overs stalled momentum.

"We set up a good platform to target the last few overs, then lost a few there, and we only kind of scraped to 160. Could have easily been 170, and then I guess at the end you needed 40 off the last three, and the way they were able to take down the offie, and at the end it was good batting," Santner reflected.

On the approach with the bat, he added: "The other innings we lost the wickets throughout and managed to get to a score through the last 4 overs but today we kind of set a platform, got to the second timeout in a pretty good spot and then some tough options straight up after the timeout but you need to kind of get runs and we were thinking at that stage 170-175 would have been a good score."

Santner reserved special praise for Ahmed's finishing act. "Rehan showed his class with the bat in the last couple of years. A very good player of spin. He wasn't really fazed on that wicket. His partnership with Jacks, but also set up well by Banton and Curran after losing a few at the start."

Earlier in the chase, New Zealand had struck twice in the first eight balls through Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson to reduce England to 2/2. But England captain Harry Brook felt belief in his middle order made the difference.

"(On the partnership between Rehan and Jacks) We have seen what Reh can do in the nets, and he has gone out there and played beautifully there. Jacksy played brilliantly too, who has won his 4th Man of the Match award in the -- the most he has got, he just told me. He is pretty happy with that performance."

Brook said Ahmed's inclusion was a tactical call. "There are conversations to be had. We said to the group that we are going to select the team on the basis of the conditions. We thought that today was the perfect opportunity to bring him in, and he did an amazing job."

On facing an unbeaten New Zealand side, Brook added: "Well, we know that they (NZ) are a strong side. I think he was unbeaten until now. We played against them before Christmas, and we knew how strong they were. They do the little things really well. They have got some extreme power with the batting and are very skilful with their bowling."

He also threw his weight behind Jos Buttler amid scrutiny over form. "Well, I think that there has been a lot of talk about Jos. I said the other day that he has played 150 games for England, and people need to probably take a step back from that. He is probably the best white ball player to ever play the game. He is in a little bit of a poor run now, but that's something everyone goes through. We know what he can produce in the next couple of games. He knows what he can do. He averages 34, striking at 145 in 150 games. He is a phenomenal player, and I have no doubts about that."

On Jacks' role in the line-up, Brook was emphatic: "He is just a proper batter. There was one instance earlier against the West Indies where he came out and went bonkers from the first ball. He is a proper batter. He has played Test cricket, and as we have seen tonight, he has got immense power as well."

As for a preferred semifinal opponent in Mumbai, Brook made England's stance clear: "We are not bothered. We just want to go out there and ..."

- IANS