New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner added that his team was outplayed by India in the final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, while lauding Team India for their dominant performance in front of a home crowd as well. Speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, Santner said that New Zealand had fought hard throughout the tournament despite facing a lot of challenges, but added that India were the better team that day.
“Proud of the boys to make it this far. Obviously, we had some challenges throughout, but at each stage we put up a good fight. Today, we got outplayed by a great team in front of a great crowd. To see a big sea of blue, obviously India were home favourites,” Mitchell Santner said during the post-match presentation ceremony.
However, Mitchell Santner also commented on the challenges of playing a World Cup in front of home supporters, noting that while the pressure can be intense, the Indian team handled it well during the tournament.
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“Playing a home World Cup comes with a lot of pressure. But yeah, SKY (Suryakumar Yadav) and the boys should be very, very proud. Different guys stood up at different stages. In the Super Eight and semi-finals, we put up a good fight, but tonight we were obviously outplayed,” he added.
Coming to the match, New Zealand put India to bat first after winning the toss, Sanju Samson (89 in 46 balls, with five fours and eight sixes), Abhishek Sharma (52 in 21 balls, with six fours and three sixes), Ishan Kishan (54 in 25 balls, with four boundaries and four sixes) and Shivam Dube (26* in 8 balls, with three fours and two sixes) took India to 255/5 as well.
Later on, despite a quickfire half-century from Tim Seifert (52 in 26 balls, with two fours and five sixes), New Zealand had to bow down to Axar (3/27) and Bumrah (4/15) as India secure their third T20 W orld Cup title in style, becoming the first team to defend the title as well, and also the first host nation to win the trophy as well.
