Pitch became harder for batting as game progressed: Guptill

Senior New Zealand opener Martin Guptill blamed sluggish Eden Park track for ir flop show with bat in an absolute surrender to Indian side in second T20 International on Sunday. Guptill scored a quickfire 33 off 20 balls but Indian bowlers kept a tight leash on Black Cap restricting m for 132 and n reaching target in only 17.3 overs.

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'We certainly felt that pitch was getting slower and slower': Guptill

"We certainly felt that pitch was getting slower and slower when we were batting. It got harder and harder to bat as game progressed. We needed one of top three-four to bat majority of innings. We weren't able to get partnerships to add up total," Guptill told reporters after his team lost second successive T20 International.

surface was slower compared to first game where New Zealand scored 203."It was a slightly different wicket. Earlier on, it was coming nicely. Colin (Munro) and I were off to a reasonable start. We lost momentum reafter sixth over, and we had to sort of rebuild from re, he said.

target was t a tough one to chase down admitted Guptill."We probably knew we were light on runs. But we had to try and defend that, and get early wickets upfront. Thought bowlers did well in front six overs, we needed more wickets after Virat got out. Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul batted very well and we were t able to break that partnership," he added.Guptill and Colin Munro put up 48 for opening stand after 80 in first game.

'Our role in team is to be aggressive': Guptill

"Our role in team is to be aggressive and we go out re to do that. One of us would have been good to bat 15 overs to set innings up and have guys bat around us. It was t supposed to be today and we have time to try to do that in next game and do a better performance," he added.

When asked what total would have been optimal on such a slow wicket, he replied,"I thought maybe 170 would have been alright. But obviously we were way off. India bowled very well tonight and bowled as straight as possible. re were a lot of dot balls tonight and that impacted our innings."

Guptill was all praise for Jasprit Bumrah's versatility at death.

"Lot of swing and misses. We were trying but we were facing one of best death bowlers in world (Jasprit Bumrah). It is tough to get him away at end." opener felt that India once again out-batted m on a difficult track."y played very well, as hard as y did or night. y built partnerships to put pressure on us. We were t able to do that and got out-batted tonight. India have got some great players and match winners. It is hard for boys to go out re and try ir best. Sometimes you come up short," Guptill furr added.

Defending a target is an onerous job at Eden Park due to its small size and peculiar dimension. "It's just one of those grounds where it is very hard to defend. We have seen it in a number of games. We got 240 versus Australia and we lost. It is just hard to defend runs on here and we bat first a lot here. We put up totals a lot of days and or days we might have done it, but on this particular day we were t able to pull through," Guptill signed off.

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