Wellington: After coming up short in the fifth and final T20I against New Zealand, Australia limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch on Sunday said that his side wasn’t aggressive with the bat.
Ish Sodhi’s three-wicket haul and Martin Guptill’s 71-run knock helped New Zealand defeat Australia by seven wickets in the fifth and final T20I on Sunday here at the Westpac Stadium, Wellington. With this, the Kiwis won the five-match series 3-2.
“We probably weren’t aggressive enough with the bat. We let them dictate terms and didn’t get enough runs. Probably was the difference in the game. If one of us kicked on, could have got to 160-170. I thought the pitch played quite well today. It was slightly better today than the other day I thought,” said Finch after the game.
“We have been talking about the gradual improvement from game 1 to game 4, and that was exciting. Would have been great to win the series but NZ are a great team. We just weren’t good enough today,” he added.
The first two T20Is of the five-match series were won by New Zealand, but Australia staged a comeback to level the series 2-2. However, in the series decider, the hosts were on their game from the very start and they ended up winning the series 3-2.
In the fifth and final T20I, Ish Sodhi’s three-wicket haul helped New Zealand restrict Australia to 142/8 in the allotted twenty overs.
In the end, Glenn Phillips (34) and Mark Chapman (1) took the BlackCaps over the line by seven wickets and 27 balls to spare.