CT Exclusive: 'We needed to be aggressive' - Glenn Phillips opens up on his remarkable knock against Sri Lanka

Saturday, October 29 witnessed a jaw-dropping knock from a Kiwi batter that floored Sri Lanka and dented their chances of making it to the final four of the ongoing T20 World Cup.

The Kiwi is none other than the 25-year-old explosive wicketkeeper-batter Glenn Phillips who stunned everyone with his swashbuckling knock of 104 runs off just 64 balls with ten fours and four maximums to his name. Interestingly, his historic knock came after he was dropped early on in his innings.

On the back of Glenn’s amazing knock followed by Trent Boult’s amazing display with the ball as he bagged four wickets while conceding just 13 runs in his quota of four overs with an amazing economy rate of 3.25, New Zealand won the match comfortably by a massive margin of 65 runs to register their second win in the tournament.

‘Player of the Match’ Glenn Phillips was in conversation with CricTracker during the post-match press conference. He was asked about his mindset when he came into the middle after the fall of the second wicket with the score soon becoming 15/3 runs at the end of the fourth over.

“What was your mindset when you came in the middle after three batters went back to the pavilion without touching the double digit,” asked CricTracker reporter to Phillips.

“I guess, when Kane was out, there was very much understanding there, we do need to be aggressive and obviously when we lost three in the powerplay, the mindset and intent changed to running between the wickets,” said Phillips to CricTracker.

Having Daryl was like belief for me – Glenn Phillips

Furthermore, Phillips heaped praise on Daryl Mitchell for the latter’s crucial support in their 84-run stand for the fourth wicket. Notably, the duo played a crucial role in New Zealand’s total of 167 runs in the allotted 20 overs.

“Neither myself nor Daryl is the player going to back down from the challenge. Daryl, I believe he made the situations, I guess, and he does it every time. So having him (Daryl) was like a belief for me, we tried to make sure having communication as much as possible throughout that patch and it was important to get out through to the 13-14 overs,” he added.

Here is the video of Glenn Phillips in conversation with CricTracker:

 Complete Post-Match Press Conference after match between New Zealand vs Sri Lanka