Grant Elliott hopes Martin Guptill carries his good form to World T20
Ahead of the World Twenty20 tournament, New Zealand's veteran batsman Grant Elliott has expressed the hope that hard-hitting opener Martin Guptill will carry his sublime form to the competition.
The 27-day tournament got underway in Nagpur on March 8 and will be played at eight venues across India with Eden Gardens in Kolkata scheduled to host the final on April 3.
India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Australia are clubbed in Group 2 while South Africa, England, the West Indies and Sri Lanka are in Group 1.
"Guptill has been in good form recently and has experience of playing in all conditions. I hope he carries his good form to the World T20 competition. I hope he scores some good runs for the side," Elliott said at a press conference here.
"India has different kind of conditions compared to New Zealand. So we need to assess the nature of the pitch before playing our aggressive brand of cricket," he said.
New Zealand come into the tournament with some hard hitters in Elliott, Guptill, Colin Munro, Williamson and all-rounders Corey Anderson, Mitchell McClenaghan and McCullum forming a strong batting line-up.
The 36-year-old said the team has a couple of match winners who can take the game away from the opposition and hoped the side delivers on the given day.
"T20 is a different ball game. We need to have two batsmen playing well on that particular day and we can win it. We have some match winners on our team and hope if we deliver well, we can win and go all the way," he said.
New Zealand will, however, miss hard-hitting batsman Brendon McCullum who retired from the game recently.
Speaking on McCullum, the right-handed batsman said, "Brendon has been playing for a long time. He has achieved a lot in international cricket. He has felt that it is good time to leave the team and hand over the reins to other young players. We would have loved to have him here for five years. But this is cricket."