Michael Bracewell shares his reflections on captaining at Eden Park for the first time.
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00:00Yeah, so I think we probably left ourselves a little bit short in the batting innings.
00:09To be bowled out in a 20-20, it's obviously a little bit disappointing and I thought Chappie
00:15played really well, sort of held the innings together nicely, but when we lost his wicket
00:21we sort of lost a little bit of momentum, had to rebuild and yeah, I think we were possibly
00:2615-20 runs short in the batting innings and then from a bowling point of view, it is pretty
00:32tough out there with the short boundaries and things like that.
00:36I think we chucked a lot of different options at them and tried to keep changing things
00:42up but they ultimately played really well.
00:45That partnership was pretty impressive and they played some great shots and yeah, we're
00:52obviously disappointed with the loss but you have to take it in your stride a little
00:56bit.
00:57It's a unique ground to play at.
01:00Was that your first time captaining at Eden Park?
01:03It was my first time at Eden Park, yeah.
01:04Does it offer up a few new challenges for you?
01:06Yeah, it does.
01:07I think any ground offers a different variety and yeah, there's certainly plenty of challenges
01:13out there as a captain, particularly when a team gets away and you're like that.
01:19They played really well and also rode their luck a little bit from time to time, which
01:24you're allowed to do in a 20-20 match when you're chasing 200, you have to have a few
01:28things go your way and they certainly did tonight.
01:31How tricky is it when you used to have 140 runs on the board in the 13th over but you
01:36find yourself, I guess you last recognised a pair of bandits against you in a match after
01:40Chappie got out.
01:41It can be an unusual dynamic to have to deal with.
01:44Yeah, that's a good question.
01:47I think the thing is you obviously want to make the most of your results, first of all,
01:54so yeah, to not bat out the full 20 overs is disappointing, but yeah, you have to keep
02:01going because obviously you understand that it is a pretty decent wicket and it's going
02:06to be a high-scoring affair, so you have to consolidate, but perhaps that consolidation
02:12period is a little bit shorter than normal on, say, a bigger ground or something like
02:16that.
02:17Just lastly, you don't have to bat out all your Pakistani hit-back in the series, it's
02:21very much sort of a lie, you know, what's going to be the key on Sunday to hopefully
02:24closing it out?
02:25Yeah, we've been playing some really good cricket and I think today we did a number
02:29of things pretty well too, so it's just those small margins.
02:32I think you can sort of write this off as a bit of experience and yeah, as I said, it's
02:39a pretty unique ground to play at, so you can't read too much into it, but yeah, obviously
02:44they've improved from game to game, which the series is alive and well, which is exciting
02:50as we go down to Bay Oval.
02:52I think it's going to be another great game down there and yeah, hopefully the crowd comes
02:57out and supports us again like they have so far this series.