New Zealand coach Stead happy after string of successes

AUCKLAND: After a successful home summer that saw them win seven straight series across formats against opponents like West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and Bangladesh, New Zealand coach Gary Stead was a happy and satisfied person.

"It's been really exciting for the team, we've played some really good cricket across all formats of the game. If you said to me at the start of the year that those results would be what they would be I'd say, yeah, I'd sign up for that any day," said Stead on Friday, a day after his team wrapped up the T20I series against Bangladesh 3-0. This came on the back of their 3-0 ODI win over the same side.

"I think winning Test matches is still the ultimate for the group and we knew at the start of the summer that we needed to win four of them to give us a chance of [reaching] the final. So to do that was pretty exciting, especially the game at Mount Maunganui (against Pakistan) went it went right down to the wire," added Stead.

New Zealand, by virtue of their success in the Test series in home summer made it to the World Test Championship final to be played at Southampton, England from June 18-22. IANS

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