Kane Williamson lauds ‘pretty special’ Lockie Ferguson for 4 maidens after PNG win

Kane Williamson was awestruck after Lockie Ferguson became only the second bowler.

In the history of Men’s T20Is to bowl 4 maidens in a match. On Monday, June 17, Ferguson finished with figures of 4-4-0-3 against Papua New Guinea in a T20 World Cup Group C match at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba, Trinidad. Canada’s Saad Bin Zafar is the other bowler to the landmark after he had figures of 4-4-0-2 against Panama back in 2021 in the T20 World Cup Americas Region Qualifier.

Ferguson got the wickets of Assad Vala, Charles Amini and Chad Soper and helped New Zealand bowl PNG out for 78 in 19.4 overs. Williamson lauded the speedster for showing an incredible amount of accuracy and not letting the opposition batters any breathing space whatsoever. On the back of his spell, New Zealand won by 7 wickets.

“Yeah, I mean, pretty incredible. I suppose usually you go for at least one, often a few more in T20 cricket, but he was able to bowl very consistently and get the rewards. Pretty special to bowl four maidens in a row,” Williamson said in the post-match press conference.

‘Did not get a strong start’

Williamson also reflected on the campaign where the Kiwis failed to make their way through to the Super 8. The Black Caps lost to Afghanistan and West Indies, after which their matches against Uganda and PNG became dead rubbers.

“Yeah, look, I mean, it’s just finished for us, obviously. Well, having said that, I mean, it took a long time to start, and then in a matter of days, we were sort of not in contention, which was frustrating. We wanted to start the campaign strong, and we weren’t able to do that,” Williamson said.

“We played against a couple of very strong sides who are very well equipped in these conditions and unfortunately it was the difference in our first two games and then some decent cricket in the last two, so all in all frustrating, but I think the learnings for certainly players that come back, perhaps to this part of the world or in some of these conditions, they’ve been somewhat challenging and so some good experiences to have going forward,” Williamson added.

Williamson’s own form wasn’t great either as he scored only 28 runs from 4 games at an average of 14 and a strike-rate of 87.50. Trent Boult also played his last T20 World Cup match against PNG.