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As New Zealand seal their Super 8 spot after defeated Canada by eight wickets in match 31 of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026, New Zealand's stand-in captain Daryll Mitchell praised Canada's 19-year-old opener, Yuvraj Samra who became the youngest player to smash a century in T20 World Cups at the age of 19.
Samra tumbled records at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Tuesday when he became the youngest batter to score a century in a T20 World Cup match after smashing a 58-ball ton. The 19-year-old Samra made 110 runs off just 65 balls, including 11 fours and six sixes, which helped Canada set a big target of 174 runs for New Zealand. Glenn Phillips played a match-winning knock of 76 runs off 36 balls, along with Rachin Ravindra's 59 runs off 39 balls, while chasing 174 in New Zealand's fourth group stage fixture. Speaking during the post-match presentation, Mitchell, when asked about Yuvraj Samra, said, "He played beautifully. I think, on that surface, which looked like a pretty nice pitch to keep them to 170 when a guy gets 110, it was a great effort by our boys. But I take my hat off to him. He played really well." Mitchell said he enjoys playing in Chennai's conditions, in infront of a local crowd, and liked the surface. "I thought it was a great pitch. I love playing here at Chepauk. Obviously, a number of us have been part of the CSK family here as well over the years. So yeah, we love playing in front of these crowds," Mitchell said. Speaking about Stephen Fleming and the upcoming Super Eights, the Kiwi admires their head coach and is thrilled to reach Colombo soon and get ready for the Super Eights. "He's the mayor or the king or something like that. I'm really excited to arrive in Colombo tomorrow and prepare for the Super 8s. It's the first box we wanted to tick off in this tournament. And now we'll look forward to the upcoming games," Mitchell added. Glenn Phillips was named player of the match for his blitzing knock of 76 runs. After receiving the award, he said," We got on a bit of a run at the end there, which is fantastic, but I think Rachin and I were just trying to stick to our processes, play one ball at a time. Obviously, they got a couple of early wickets, which put us on the back foot a little bit, and, obviously, it just ended how it ended, but the piece was good." Speaking about his aggressive batting, Phillips focused on one ball at a time and got many balls in his hitting range, making full use of them. "I think some days you just get balls in your zone a little more often than others. And today happened to be one of those days, I think, for both myself and Rach. It was definitely just about trying to make good decisions for one ball at a time, and that's all that really mattered. And then as we carried on the partnership, it just grew really well," Phillips concluded. (ANI)
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