IND vs NZ: Tim Southee rues hectic schedule for T20I series loss

New Zealand skipper Tim Southee feels the team's hectic schedule has been one of the reasons for New Zealand's poor show in the first two games of the India tour. New Zealand arrived in India within 24 hours after playing the 20-20 World Cup final against Australia. Their chances also took a dip when Kane Williamson opted out of the series to prepare for the Test series. They were already without the services of Devon Conway, who was ruled out of the series owing to a broken hand.

"It's been a hectic schedule on the back of the T20 World Cup, I just don't think we adapted to the surface as well as we could have," Southee said at the post-match conference.

Having lost the first T20I, New Zealand needed to win the second game to stay alive in the seres. They got off to a good start to the second T20I, scoring at 10 runs per over in the powerplay. However, they soon ran out of gas and could only manage a below-par 153/5, which was wiped out by India without breaking a sweat. Given the dew, New Zealand needed a lot more than what they settled for.

"There was heavy dew throughout the whole night and it affected both sides. It's tough, you can obviously train with a wet ball but we're not able to adapt as we would have liked. Credit to the Indians they outplayed us," Southee said.

"We needed to take early wickets to put them under pressure. For me, I was just trying to replicate what they did, which looked hard during our innings. It was tough for our spinners to get a good grip on the ball. But yeah, like I said they were just too good tonight," he said.

Southee said the team will be pushing hard to end the limited-overs tour on a high. "The goal is to get one last push before we get home after the next game. That's another opportunity to represent your country. So I don't think you need any extra motivation to get yourself up. It's a great place to play cricket coming here tonight in front of a full house. It's just an amazing place to play it so I'm sure the guys will be able to pick it up and finish the tour on a high," he signed off.