Picture Credit: Twitter/@CricCrazyJohns
New Zealand scripted history on Wednesday with a terrific win over England in the first semi-final of the ongoing T20 World Cup. The Black Caps sealed their first-ever spot in the final of the event by defeating England by a margin of 5 wickets. The nail-biter went to the penultimate over before Daryl Mitchell could hold his nerves to hit Chris Woakes for 19 runs with the over giving a total of 20 runs to the Kiwis and helping them reach their second World Cup final in just more than two years.
Given New Zealand were struggling at one stage despite finding themselves lucky at the toss, the victory on Wednesday gave a huge sigh of relief to them. Understandably, the players of the side were seen jumping out of their seats as soon as Daryl Mitchell hit the winning runs. However, what surprised everyone was to see Kane Williamson and James Neesham keeping their calm despite the victory. Amid the duo as well, Williamson could not stop himself from passing a smile on the unprecedented achievement, while Neesham remained as he was on his chair that too without any expression on his face.
Neesham reveals the reason
As soon as Neesham's expressionless face despite a New Zealand victory went viral on internet, the netizens started wondering on why the all-rounder was unaffected by overall scene around. While the internet kept buzzing with the question along with the extensive media coverage on the incident, Neesham responded to it with a simple and obvious answer. "Job finished? I don’t think so," he replied to a post on Twitter that was wondering on why the player was expressionless.
New Zealand's batting coach Luke Ronchi seemed to be happy with Neesham's reaction as he also echoed the same thing what the all-rounder spoke about. "It's always nice winning semi-finals and getting into finals, isn't it?" Ronchi told reporters as quoted by Reuters, adding, "But all that means is you have another game left."
Notably, the team had had a bitter sweet World Cup in 2019 when they had entered the final and lost the trophy just on the basis of now-scrapped boundary count rule. Neesham, one of the New Zealand players playing in the finale, must be having that grudge somewhere in his heart that certainly stopped him from celebrating before the final run.