New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner admitted that his Indian counterpart Rohit Sharma's exceptional knock was the difference between the two teams in the Champions Trophy final, and termed the four-wicket defeat as a "bittersweet end." Rohit made a fluent 76 off 83 balls as India chased down 252 in a close finish here on Sunday. "I think the way Rohit Sharma played kind of took it away from us, I think, obviously, India here understood the conditions in Dubai perfectly and played some good cricket. Yeah I guess it's kind of bittersweet at the end," said Santner in the post-match press conference.
Santner said he was "proud" of his side despite the surrender in the title clash.
"I think we came up against a good side in the final. We challenged at times throughout this game, which was pleasing and I think there were probably a couple of small moments where we let it get away from us.
"But yeah, incredibly proud of this group the way we've kind of gone about it throughout this tournament," he added.
Santner said the Kiwis were prepared to tackle the DICS pitch and conditions, which were vastly different from Lahore, the venue of their semifinal win over South Africa.
"I guess we just keep coming up against India, which is always a challenge. We knew the conditions were going to be slightly different again from the semifinal, but we were ready for that.
"I thought we still put in a pretty good performance, and we took India deep. But I guess there's always a few moments in every game, let alone every final, where you can potentially look back at," he said.
Santner also conceded that they missed Matt Henry after he was ruled out of the title clash with a shoulder injury.
Pacer Henry was the highest wicket-taker in the event with 10 scalps.
"He's an outstanding bowler. We've seen he seems to be able to nip it on wickets that don't look like they should nip so I guess we missed that today.
"I feel for Matty - he's a massive team man and he looked pretty distraught. You know, we just kind of said, like, let's do it for him. He tried everything he could to be ready for this game and unfortunately for us he wasn't quite there," he noted.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)