By Karan Agrawal 
It was the start of the new millennium when two underdogs, India and New Zealand, met in the final of an ICC tournament for the first time. Batting first, the Men In Blue posted a fighting total of 264 runs on the board with captain Sourav Ganguly leading from the front with a solid century and was well supported by Sachin Tendulkar who also scored a half century. The experienced Indian bowling lineup started well as New Zealand were reduced to 132/5 with India in touching distance of a much needed win after the events that had unfolded in the last few month but the pair of Chris Cairns and Chris Harris had other plans as the duo added 121 runs for the sixth wicket to guide their team to a come from behind win as Blackcaps won their first ICC trophy.
The Journey
What promised to be the start of a golden age for New Zealand transpired in them witnessing a string of heartbreaks in the next 25 years, with the only silver lining being the win in the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship in June 2021. A similar story has been repeated in the recently concluded edition of the 2025 Champions Trophy as the Mitchell Santner-led side fell just short of winning their second Champions Trophy title after losing to India in the final on Sunday. With this loss, New Zealand has now lost their last four knockout matches in ICC tournaments, starting with the final of the 2021 T20 World Cup, followed by the lose in the semi final of the 2022 T20 World Cup and the 2023 ODI World Cup and the latest being the lose in the Champions Trophy final. If we talk about New Zealand’s performance in the knockout matches of ICC ODI tournaments, the Mitchell Santner-led side has lost the last three knockout matches of an ICC ODI tournament that they have played.
Captain’s Corner
Talking after loosing to India in the final of the Champions Trophy New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner said that his team was not upto the mark in the field and according to him that’s what made the difference “I guess they’re starting to add up a bit now,” said Santner at the post-match press conference. “But yeah, if you make finals, you’re coming up against another pretty good team who’s also playing some good cricket. So, I think I was proud with the way we fought tonight. I think we pride ourselves on, especially in the field, not giving up. And I don’t think we did throughout that inning. So, I guess, it’s bittersweet. You always want to win one of these. And I don’t know how many more chances we’ll get. But yeah, I think this is up there for us. I think we were playing some good cricket leading into this, and we thought we were in with a real sniff today, but I guess we just got beaten by a good team.”
The Performance
Santner thought that New Zealand was not able to seize important moments that might have turned the game in their favour. In the words of Santner, “I guess we just keep coming up against India, which is always a challenge. You’ve got to acknowledge that it’s a massive game. But I think the way you go about it is you treat it as we’ve been doing throughout the tournament. We knew the conditions were going to be slightly different again from the semi-final, but we were ready for that. I thought we still put in a pretty good performance, and we took India deep. But I guess there’s always a few moments in every game, let alone every final, where you can potentially look back at. I guess just the way we kind of keep sticking at it, the way we fought, pretty proud of the group for doing that.”
The Conditions
The all-rounder felt that the pitch started turning a little in the second innings. Having said that, the New Zealand captain also acknowledged the fact that they should have rotated the strike a bit more in the middle overs. “I think there was probably a little bit more turn in the second innings, I think it was a pretty consistent pitch all the way through. I guess coming off the semi-final where we feel like if we get a total we can squeeze teams and we did that for a majority of this game, but yeah, I think outside of the powerplay with the bat we kind of lost a couple pretty quickly – and then it was definitely a hard wicket to start on and then yeah, I think we probably left maybe 25 out there, and then there may have been a different game,” he said.
The Intent
When asked whether New Zealand lacked intent in the first Innings, Santner said, “I think the intent we had with the bat, especially at the start, was outstanding. It was clear probably the best time to bat was the powerplay. And I think the way we went about it for the first kind of eight overs or so was outstanding. And then it took some brilliance from the spin bowlers to kind of really peg us back and make it, I guess, challenging through that kind of middle phase. Yeah, we didn’t, I guess after the start, we were probably thinking 280, 275. But the way they were able to squeeze and build pressure, and then, the way Michael Bracewell played at the end got us up to that 250 mark, but it was maybe looking a little bit less.”
The Setback
New Zealand’s fast bowling spearhead Matt Henry missed the Champions Trophy final due to a shoulder injury which he sustained during the second semi final against South Africa in Lahore which proved to be a messive blow for New Zealand as their bowling looked short of plans against an experienced Indian batting lineup. Talking about the impact of Henry’s absence, Santner said, “He’s an outstanding bowler as we’ve seen, he seems to be able to nip it on wickets that don’t look like they should nip. I guess we missed that today, and I feel for Matty – he’s a massive team man and like you said, he looked pretty distraught. We just kind of said, like, let’s do it for him. To come this far and then be injured for the main event was obviously pretty tough for him and I guess for us, but yeah, he tried everything he could to be ready for this game and unfortunately for us he wasn’t quite there.”
The Praise
The New Zealand captain praised Rohit Sharma for his aggressive batting against the new ball, which set up India’s win. “I guess if you would ask Rohit before the tournament which game he’d like to score the most runs, it’d probably be the final. But I think his approach, he puts fear in bowlers. They’re kind of aggressive in nature. I think him and Shubman adapted well. Shubman will wait for a bad ball, but Rohit is pretty happy to hit bowlers off their lengths. And I guess the way he goes about it, you might fail a few times, but, like he did today, if you can really get your team off to a flyer, especially on a slow wicket, you put yourself kind of ahead of the game. And like, their power play with the bat was good, and then, you know, I guess we’re kind of on the back foot from there with him being probably 100 for none. So yeah, I think the way he goes about it, he might fail every now and then, but he can potentially turn one game just by the way he kind of goes about, and he did that tonight,” Santner said.
The Opportunity
The left-arm spinner, in hindsight, felt that New Zealand needed to dismiss Rohit early to have any chance of winning the match. “We just needed to get Rohit Sharma out by the looks of it. They got off to a good start with some good batting and a good partnership. But I think we still felt through the middle stages; you could really squeeze the new batters. It looked like a tough wicket to start on, as it was the other day here. So, we’re still trying to be aggressive with the ball. Just told someone to potentially change the game with a catch or run out of something. And I think we were still able to chip wickets out. I think there was a little period of play there before Rohit got out that we definitely started to squeeze and you could kind of feel something happening. But I think to go run-a-ball 70 or 80 on that wicket was a pretty good knock.”