England have mental edge over New Zealand - Ben Stokes

Omnisports

March 28, 2016 9:17 AM

New Zealand have been impressive at the World T20, but Ben Stokes believes England have a slight edge in Wednesday's semi-final.

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Ben Stokes is confident that England have the mental edge over New Zealand in the World T20 semi-finals due to their knowledge of the Delhi pitch and recent wins over the Black Caps.

New Zealand have been in sensational form thus far at the tournament, winning all four of their Super 10 fixtures to qualify top of Group Two.

But while England will be playing a third consecutive fixture in Delhi, the Black Caps have yet to play at the Feroz Shah Kotla Ground.

England also beat New Zealand in a World T20 warm-up as well as securing one-day international and T20 series victories last year.

And Christchurch-born all-rounder Stokes believes that may play into England's hands, saying: "We know the conditions more than New Zealand will.

"Probably we do have a slight mental advantage over them. We beat them in the warm-up game and we beat them in the summer as well.

"But we're not going to take too much from those two games."

England started the tournament poorly after losing to West Indies and conceding 229 runs to South Africa.

But they rebounded to chase down the Proteas' total brilliantly, before going on to defeat Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, with Stokes hailing England's fighting spirit.

"The way we bounced back from the first three innings of our tournament, ever since then we've come on leaps and bounds," he added.

"That just proves the character that we've got, the never-say-die attitude - I think that comes from youth as well.

"The way we've played has been the best thing - we've all played the way that we've done for our counties."

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