New Zealand vs Pakistan T20 World Cup: 3 Changes New Zealand can make for NZ vs PAK semi final

New Zealand vs Pakistan: Kane Williamson led New Zealand has been the most dominant team of this T20 World Cup. They have lost just one game so far and has even defeated the mighty Aussies by a huge margin. But they have a long history of bottling it in the semi-finals and finals. Despite qualifying for the semis consistently in all ICC events since 2015, they have just won one title that too ICC World Test Championship. So let’s see what changes New Zealand needs to make to lay its hands on the trophy this season.

1. Better Intent from Kane Williamson

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson is not at the best of his forms. After the shoulder injury that he suffered a few years back, he is struggling with the pace of his batting. He has been eating up a lot of deliveries in the middle phase. He shifted gears in the last match against Ireland and New Zealand would want their captain to continue playing like how he did against Ireland to avoid unnecessary pressure of players to follow him like Phillips.

2. Glenn Philips to face more deliveries

Glenn Phillips has been the premium batter for the Kiwis this season. He is amongst the leading run-scorers and has been finishing games at ease. But due to the slow starts from Williamson and Conway at times, Phillips has been seen asked to hit from ball one. Kiwis should address this issue and see that Phillips who is at the best of his forms, gets to face most of the deliveries without much pressure added to him. Also coincidently, SCG is the place where Phillips scored a 62-ball hundred in this T20 World Cup.

3. Guptill to replace Mitchell

Even though there is no need to change the winning combination, New Zealand could bring in senior pro Martin Guptill into the middle order in place of Daryl Mitchell. The later had very little role to play so far. With SCG being a batting-friendly track, they could use Guptill as a batting cushion, since Mitchell has had zero contributions with the ball so far.