New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson admitted to being frustrated after the loss to Pakistan in the semi-final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 in Sydney on Wednesday.

New Zealand have managed to make the final four of the last three ICC Men’s T20 World Cups and the the last two ICC Men’s Cricket World Cups, only to miss out on the final prize every single time.

While admitting that it wasn’t ideal, Williamson expressed frustration at this particular loss against Pakistan because New Zealand did not play their best cricket on the day.

“To me it’s about the game, the performance, and that’s certainly what we look at,” Williamson said after the game. “That’s the frustrating thing for me today. If you get beaten playing your best cricket, then you certainly have to accept that.

“Today was a little bit disappointing. There were some good bits, but we thought we had a defendable total if we were to be on our game, and the margins are small in this format, and Pakistan were outstanding with the bat and certainly chased that down.”

New Zealand have come agonisingly close to the trophy multiple times in the recent past only to falter towards the end.

“I think we’ve played in a number of different finals and put out really good performances, probably good enough to win, and either got met by a side that’s played a little bit better or a side that’s played about equal, you know, however it looks.”

You accept some of those things, and so the frustrating part of this today is that we weren’t quite on top of our game. We fought hard and we showed some good characteristics that are important for our team and the attitude you want to see, but yeah, it wasn’t to be. That’s the frustrating part to me.”

Williamson stressed on the positive environment in the camp but went back to point out that the below-par showing in Sydney on Wednesday hurt his team’s chances.

“You play a number of tournaments. Yeah, you want to win some, but you finish a tournament, you certainly just start focusing on the next one. To me it comes down to the cricket, and that’s where we put our focus. The environment, how well we’re tracking, and there’s been a lot of good stuff.

“The journey was good, a lot of good cricket, but as we know, you’ve got to continue to as you go into the business end, and today was certainly frustrating.”

The New Zealand skipper identified Pakistan’s batting Powerplay as a crucial turning point in the game. While the Black Caps did not have an ominous score on board, it was “defendable” according to Williamson.

“Pakistan got off to a good start and put us under pressure and then were able to sort of wrestle back a little bit of momentum and build a couple of partnerships and then sort of fight our way to a score that we thought on that surface we could make a little bit difficult.”