Veteran New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor, who played his 100th T20I on Sunday, admitted that the 0-5 clean sweep by India has hurt his team badly. He explained that the entire T20I series has been a thorough disappointment for them.

However, Taylor was also quick to highlight that his team played much better cricket than the results eventually suggest although they knew that it was going to be a tough series against a strong Indian side.

“The whole series has been a disappointment, the way we put ourselves in good positions and just were not able to capitalize. When you are up against a world-class side like India, we have played a lot worse and got better results than this,” Taylor said after the match as quoted by PTI.

“Even though it’s a different format (than ODI and Test), it still does hurt. Winning is a habit and losing those tight games. But we are going into a format that is one of our strengths. In ODI cricket, hopefully Kane’s shoulder is all right, new personnel and some world-class players coming back and we are looking forward,” he said of the three-match ODI series ahead of them.

“You can’t give this Indian side an inch, we gave them a lot more than that and they took advantage. You got to learn a lot quicker than we are now with both bat and ball. Until then, we will get similar results,” he said.

“More often than not it is tough to win away from home but to come over here with a couple of their star players missing that would add a different balance to their side. I am sure it is very good for Indian cricket.”

“I probably say this, we were completely outplayed in the series last year and we came back and won that semi-final in the World Cup. Whenever we play India in a T20I game, we know it will be an uphill task but we know we can still beat them when it counts hopefully,” he added.

“I thought we were under pressure when I came out there. The way Tim Seifert came out and batted, we got ourselves to what once again would normally be a comfortable scenario with 66 off 60 balls. You win, maybe 95 times (from there),” said the 35-year-old right-handed batsman.

“When you got a world-class bowler like Bumrah, you have got to skin the cat slightly differently and he is able to be their X-factor for them. The way (Navdeep) Saini and others bowled put us under some pressure and wickets fell at different times,” he further said.

“We were only trying to get 15 or 16 off the over. So, we will take the 30. Once again, we got out ourselves in some really good positions in this series. We just were not able to capitalize and put the foot on throat,” he said of the Shivam Duve over in which New Zealand managed to get 34 runs.

The Kiwis will look to bounce back in the tour which consists of ODI and Test matches ahead.

(With inputs from PTI)