Staying free of pressure is important, says Taylor

“Every top-order has struggled, not just India,” the New Zealand skipper said on Tuesday afternoon. “We have struggled at the top, and Sri Lanka have had their troubles as well.

The team that loses the toss and bowls first can still win the game. Their batting is under pressure, but I would say we are under a bit of pressure as well. India are a good batting unit, they have played a lot of cricket. I'm sure with the experience they have, they'll come through. We have to take early wickets and see how they respond under pressure.”

India’s youngsters haven’t done well with the bat and young Kiwi Kane Williamson, in some doubt after picking up a bicep injury, hasn’t scored a run in two matches in this tournament.

“I've been in that situation myself, not scoring runs,” Taylor pointed out. “The thing you have to do is still train hard, but the biggest thing is trusting that you are good enough to be there and deserve to be there. A lot of batsmen in our side haven't scored as many runs as they would have liked, but they scored runs in the past. It’s not all doom and gloom for them.

“Everyone's saying it's a must-win game. It's about reinforcing to the team that at the end of the day, it’s just a game of cricket and every game you play you play to win. We don't want to put any more pressure on ourselves and that’s the attitude we'll be going with.”

Taylor sounded a little worried about how little game time with the bat the Kiwis have had in the last several days. “It’s going to be 12 days since we have actually had a bat. We played Sri Lanka for two days but we didn't have a bat, there's going to be a little more anxiety over the fact that we haven't had a bat for 12 days than the actual game itself.”