Santner vows to ‘silence’ Ahmedabad crowd in final:NZ captain fires Cummins-like warning, “wouldn’t mind breaking a few hearts”

New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner fired a Pat Cummins-like warning to India before the all-important T20 World Cup 2026 final. The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is slated to host the marquee clash on 8 March. India and New Zealand will become the first teams to feature in ICC finals across all formats, having earlier met in two ICC Champions Trophy finals (2000 and 2025) and the inaugural World Test Championship final in 2021. Mitchell Santner aims to ‘silence Ahmedabad crowd’ Santner sounded confident before the final against India, stating that they can beat India if they put in a strong performance and win the trophy. He was responding to a question on if New Zealand were planning to be the ‘bad guys’ and beat India on home soil. “I wouldn’t mind winning a trophy. You look at this group and the groups that have been in the past, we are pretty consistent on these because we try not to get overawed by the situation or opponents. We go out there and do our thing. And as a unit, it’s been no different this time. And again, it’s going to be obviously a challenge where everyone knows we’re probably not the favourites. But we don’t mind,” the Kiwi captain said. He added, “We know we can, if we do our little things well and put in a strong team performance, put us in a pretty good position to hopefully lift the trophy. I wouldn’t mind breaking a few hearts to lift the trophy for once. Santner went on to add that New Zealand’s goal was to silence the crowd in Ahmedabad. Three years ago, Australian captain Pat Cummins had made a similar remark before the 2023 World Cup final and what followed would always go down as one of India’s harshest defeats. “That’s the goal, to silence the crowd. There are a lot of variables in T20 cricket, and it can be fickle at times, as we’ve seen throughout the World Cup. A lot of teams are on the same page, and it comes down to a few little moments in every game that change the outcome. So I think India were very close to chasing that the other night,” said Santner.