Nottingham: New Zealand team coach Gary Stead has consoled his team by pointing out that it can rain anywhere in the world these days.
After his team had defeated India in the warm-up match for the World Cup, many believed that India could be beaten at Trent Bridge.
Stead was asked whether a rained-out week like this one would discourage the International Cricket Council (ICC) from holding their major events in England or even New Zealand, both countries being prone to rain.
“It can rain anywhere in the world,” Stead said. “My first tour was to Dubai, and it rained there in the desert! I never thought it would ever rain there.”
“So I don’t think we can really help that,” he added. “If you look at the UK summer from last year, I don’t think it rained at all from what I hear. So it is a bit of bad luck really.”
The Kiwi coach did not see a point in thinking about the match they could not play but instead wants to focus on the next match.
“It would have been lovely to play,” Stead said. “On a day like this, when you come down prepared to play and it doesn’t happen, it’s out of our control. So we’ve got to move on quickly for the South Africa match.”
Did his team get a measure of the Indian team in the warm-up game? And did he think his team could have beaten India?
“I’m not sure we got the measure of India necessarily,” he said. “The warm-up games are more a chance for us to get back together as a team, and we’re acutely aware that the result of that game would have no bearing on what would have happened today.
“But we would have loved to have played India today,” he added. “They’re obviously going hot, and we feel we’re playing reasonably well too, so it would have been a really nice match-up.”
The New Zealand team had to train indoors due to the rain in Nottingham, but Stead pointed out that his team can adapt to any situation.
“I think our last four trainings have all been indoors. It’s just what we have to deal with. We try to pride ourselves on our adaptability, and we have to again be adaptable.”
Talking realistically, Stead also noted that one should worry now on whether a point lost through rain would be a huge loss.
“I think it’s too early in the tournament to know if that is going to be influential or not in the long run of things. We still have to play good cricket against all the teams that we come up against. South Africa’s next on the agenda for us, so we have to let this one go very quickly and move on to that.”
