'Silence the crowd': How Mitchell Santner echoed Pat Cummins as Kiwis eye first white-ball World Cup win

Ahmedabad, 29 June — Mitchell Santner is ready to play the pantomime villain if that is what it takes to deliver New Zealand a maiden white-ball world title. Speaking on the eve of the T20 World Cup final against India at the 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium, the Black Caps captain said he would happily “break a few hearts” to lift the trophy.

“I wouldn’t mind winning a trophy,” Santner said on Saturday. “You look at this group and the groups in the past — we’ve always tried not to get overawed by the situation or the opposition. We just go out there and do our thing. I wouldn’t mind breaking a few hearts to lift the trophy for once.”

New Zealand have reached five ICC white-ball finals since 2011, including three in the past five years, but have yet to break through. Facing a host nation that has lost only once in the tournament, Santner conceded his side will begin as underdogs.

“We know we’re probably not the favourites but we don’t mind that,” he said. “If we do the little things well and put in a strong team performance, we’ll give ourselves a chance.”

Santner channelled the sentiment Australia skipper Pat Cummins expressed here in the 2023 ODI World Cup final, when Cummins spoke of the satisfaction of quieting a partisan Indian crowd. “That’s the goal, to silence the crowd,” Santner said. “T20 cricket can be fickle and it often comes down to a few key moments.”

He believes the weight of expectation sits squarely with Rohit Sharma’s side. “There’s obviously a lot of pressure on India to win a World Cup at home. If we can go out there and put pressure on them and see what happens, that’s the challenge.”

Off-field distractions have also intruded on the tournament. Santner acknowledged that the ongoing tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran — which have disrupted air travel across West Asia — have been impossible to ignore.

“It’s hard to avoid because it’s everywhere and it’s a pretty tough situation,” he said. “People at the World Cup have been affected as well. Guys not being able to go home, you can imagine how tough that is. For us it’s about focusing on what tomorrow looks like against a very, very good Indian team. It’s not easy to put those things out of your mind but we have to.”

With history and a boisterous home crowd stacked against them, Santner and his teammates will walk out on Sunday night intent on rewriting New Zealand’s white-ball narrative — one hushed grandstand at a time.