Who Are New Zealand?
New Zealand are also known as the Kiwis or the Black Caps. The Kiwis current T20 kit comprises of a beige shirt with black accents and black trousers. They are currently coached by Gary Stead and captained by Kane Williamson. The Black Caps are currently ranked 6th in the world for T20 cricket.
New Zealand played their first ever T20 match in 2005 versus Trans-Tasman rivals Australia at Eden Park, Auckland. Since then, New Zealand have played 160 T20 matches, winning 78, and losing 70, with 8 ties and 4 games with no result. They have appeared in every T20 World Cup, giving them seven appearances with their best result coming in the most recent World Cup where they finished as runners up.
New Zealand are normally considered as the underdogs in cricket due to the countries small cricket playing population, and its lack of funding when compared to the bigger countries. However, they are always a team who have punched well above their weight. But in saying this they are still a team who have struggled to win limited overs ICC tournaments even though they usually perform very well and reach the semi-finals or even finals.
New Zealand have had some very impressive T20 batsmen with the likes of Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum, Kane Williamson, and Ross Taylor. Whilst in the bowling department, they have always produced some skilful bowlers, like Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Mitchell Santner, Daniel Vettori, and Ish Sodhi.
The T20 History of New Zealand
New Zealand have reached the semi-finals at three separate T20 World Cups. Fistly at the inaugural T20 World Cup where they unfortunately lost to Pakistan by six wickets. Then a period of unsuccessful World Cups followed as they failed to make the finals on the next four occasions. But they reached the semi-finals once again in 2016, but were soundly beaten by England, losing by seven wickets.
Then at the next World Cup in 2021, New Zealand had their best outing. On this occasion they beat England by five wickets to reach the final where they faced rivals Australia. However, it was not to be on this occasion for New Zealand as they were comprehensively beaten by eight wickets despite Kane Williamson scoring 85 of 48 balls.
Who Holds the T20 Records for New Zealand?
New Zealand currently have the second leading run scorer and second leading wicket taker in international T20 cricket. Current New Zealand opener Martin Guptill is the second highest ever run scorer in T20 International cricket.
Guptill has scored 3,299 runs from 102 innings, with two hundreds and twenty fifties. Whilst Tim Southee is the second highest wicket taker with 111 wickets in 90 innings and holds the best bowling figures in a match by a Kiwi bowler with five wickets for 18 runs.
Brendon McCullum is another standout for the Kiwis in the batting department. He was ahead of his time playing in the T20 format with his ultra-aggressive style of batting which most T20 players have now adopted. He is New Zealand’s second highest run scorer with 2,140 runs in 70 innings and holds the highest score by a Kiwi batsman in an innings when he hit 123 versus Bangladesh in 2012.
Other than Southee, New Zealand have had some very impressive limited overs bowlers the likes of Ish Sodhi, Mitchell Santner, and Trent Boult all have more than 60 wickets for New Zealand in the format.
