“It’s a situation worthy of celebrating I guess – winning a semi-final – but you don’t come halfway around the world just to win a semi-final,” Neesham told New Zealand Cricket.

“We’ve got our sights pretty firmly set on the game in a few days’ time… I’m personally, and we as a team, are not getting ahead of ourselves. One game to go and I’m sure there will be a bigger outpouring of emotion if we manage to get across the line,” he added

In recent times, New Zealand have been among the most consistent sides in ICC events. They were finalists in the 2019 World Cup final, where only a bizarre boundary count role cost them the trophy. Earlier this year, New Zealand also defeated India to clinch the ICC World Test Championship. Asked about the team’s consistency, Neesham said, “Look, I think we’re experienced at it. We’ve done so well and so consistently in tournaments across five or six years. We know how to I suppose hit the reset button and put a win or a loss behind us pretty quickly.

“We’ve got pretty robust strategies around how to prepare for games with scouting, planning, and all that kind of stuff. So, those strategies will all kick over the next couple of days and we will get back on the training paddock tomorrow I think and prepare as best as we can,” he added.

On his superb partnership with Daryl Mitchell that helped New Zealand stun the Englishmen, the all-rounder revealed that he tried to hit every ball he faced for six. He said, “I just said to Daz (Daryl Mitchell), I hit CJ (Chris Jordan) for a six second ball and Daz sort of came down and said: ‘what do you think?’ I just said I’m going to try and hit every ball for six. It doesn’t always come out of the middle but chunked a couple and got enough to get over the rope. Yeah, ended up doing reasonably comfortably in the end.”

The Kiwis defeated England by five wickets to book their place in the T20 World Cup 2021 final.

–By A Cricket Correspondent