🏏 ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026, 31st match NZ vs Canada 17th Feb 🏏 - Page 7

Congratulations to NZ!! They won!!!

RESULT

CAN 173/4

NZ

(15.1/20 ov, T:174) 176/2

New Zealand won by 8 wickets (with 29 balls remaining

What a convincing win this is. After a loss to South Africa in their last game, New Zealand come storming back. Not a small chase but they made it look like one. After being 30/2, the partnership of Rachin Ravindra and Glenn Phillips have smashed their way to a win with almost 5 overs to spare. Canada were over the moon when they got Finn Allen and Tim Seifert at the same score. Ravindra came into this game needing a score and he got that. Phillips on the other hand continues his great run here in India. He was outstanding in the recent white-ball bilateral series against India and today he murdered the spinners. His straight hits down the ground were clean and powerful. Even brought out the switch-hit and hit it for six. Canada just wilted under his onslaught. A nice learning experience from them though and they will only get better from here.

Ravindra and Phillips the slight pressure that had come their way when they met in the middle with such remarkable ease. New Zealand will be pleased with Ravindra's return to form after an extended dry spell too. But take nothing away from Canada today. For each sloppy effort in the field they had a stunner to match it. And for each tactical misfire - and there were a few in both innings - there was the talent of their players to make up for it. Yuvraj Samra might be on the losing side today, and Canada might be knocked out, but it's Samra's match. He is a World Cup centurion now and no one will be taking that away from him. It wasn't enough today, but you hope to see plenty more of him at the world stage. Just 19, so the world is still at his feet!

Glenn Phillips | Player of the Match:

I mean, we did get on a bit of a run at the end there, which was fantastic. But honestly, Rach and I were just trying to stick to our processes and take it one ball at a time. They picked up a couple of early wickets, which put us on the back foot slightly. From there, it was about staying calm and building a partnership. Thankfully, it ended up the way it did. Some days, you just get balls in your zone more often than others, and today was one of those days. For both of us, it was about making good decisions every single ball. That’s all that really mattered. As the partnership developed, the momentum just grew naturally. He was fantastic. He works incredibly hard on his game, and his T20 cricket has come a long way over the last couple of years. To see him get rewarded for that hard work is brilliant. Having someone like that at the other end makes a big difference. Yeah, there was probably a bit of nervous energy early on. But we backed our depth and trusted that if we built one solid partnership, we’d be back in the game - and that’s exactly what happened

[On losing two wickets] We've been in that position a couple of times. It's just one of those things where if the top order doesn't come off necessarily, the middle order has to do the job.

[On Samra] Yeah, fabulous - really clean striker of the ball. Got a long future ahead of him."

Congratulations to NZ for their win against well-played Canada.

Congratulations to New Zealand for winning the match and for qualifying for Super 8s.

Congratulations to Glenn Phillips for winning the Player of the match award.

Cheers..