Captain Eoin Morgan said England were in dreamland after crushing New Zealand by seven wickets in New Delhi on Wednesday to qualify for cricket‘s World Twenty20 final.
Jason Roy top-scored with a sensational 78 off 44 balls as England cantered home in 17.1 overs after their bowlers had restricted much-fancied New Zealand to 153 for eight.
The 2010 champions will play either host India or the West Indies in Sunday’s final at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens following the convincing last-four win at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium.
“A final is the kind of thing you dream about,” said Morgan afterwards.
“Every player in that dressing room has worked extremely hard and made a lot of sacrifices over the past year to put us in this position,” the skipper added.
Chasing 154 for victory, England rode on a brisk 82-run partnership between opener Roy and Alex Hales as New Zealand’s bowlers, who had shone in the team’s unbeaten run to the semis, were made to suffer.
Even the introduction of spin after six overs of powerplay did little to improve the situation and Mitchell Santner eventually gave the Kiwis their first breakthrough when he got Hales (20) out.
England Beat New Zealand By 7 Wickets In World T20 Semi-Finals 2016
But Roy stayed in control, hitting 11 fours and two sixes, for a man-of-the-match performance.
“I got a few boundaries early and it just kept going from there,” said the 25-year-old.
“The whole team has that licence and opportunity to do what they want and be free with their skills. I just looked at the runs that were needed and knocked them off,” he added.
Leg-spinner Ish Sodhi took the wickets of Roy and Morgan (0) to leave himself on a hat-trick, but England made sure they stayed on course.
Jos Buttler (32), who denied Sodhi his hat-trick, and a composed Joe Root (27) then drove England to their second World T20 final, with Buttler hitting a four and two sixes against Sodhi to finish things off in style.
Earlier, Ben Stokes grabbed three wickets as England’s bowlers responded well to their captain’s decision to field first and restrict New Zealand towards the death after a poor start.
Not meant to be
New Zealand lost opener Martin Guptill early but Kane Williamson (32) and Colin Munro (46) counter-attacked with a 74-run partnership to lay a solid foundation before the Kiwis faltered late on.
Off-spinner Moeen Ali’s introduction in the 11th over soon saw the back of Williamson as England turned the screw.
Liam Plunkett bowled well in his second spell, denying Munro his fifty when a wild slice went straight into the safe hands of Ali at third man.
England’s fielders continued to pouch their catches and Morgan dived beautifully at extra cover to get rid of Ross Taylor off Chris Jordan.
The wickets quickly tumbled and New Zealand’s run-rate, which had started impressively, plummeted.
Stokes was going for a hat-trick near the end after sending back Luke Ronchi for three and the hard-hitting Anderson for 28.
The impressive all-rounder ended with figures of 3-26 as New Zealand lost five wickets for 35 runs in the final 30 deliveries of their innings.
Williamson said his charges had failed to take advantage of a promising start.
“We were 130 for three which is certainly a good platform for any game of Twenty20 cricket and we were not able to capitalise on that,” said the Kiwi skipper.
“(But) credit to England, the way they played… Jason Roy took the game away,” he added.
“Today was not meant to be for us.”
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