Santner praises Rohit Sharma's performance after Champions Trophy final loss

Defeated New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner had nothing but praise for his beaten, bruised yet unbowed squad after their loss to India in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

And he also had kind words for the player of the match, the man he said turned the game in India's favour.

"It's bittersweet at the end," he told journalists. "We came up against a good side in the final. We challenged India at times throughout this game, which was pleasing. There were a couple of small moments where we let it get away from us.

"I'm incredibly proud of this group, the way we've gone about it throughout this tournament, we've had a mix of experienced players and a few younger players in the squad. It's been an easy one to captain, different guys stepping up at different times throughout the tournament, which has been outstanding.

"We came up against a very good team today. We were in the game for most of it, we probably left 20 runs out there with the bat, and the way Rohit Sharma played took it away from us."

He refused to be disheartened about another defeat in the final of a competition, pointing out: "If you make finals, you're coming up against another pretty good team who are also playing some good cricket. I was proud of the way we fought tonight. We pride ourselves on not giving up, and I don't think we did.

"You always want to win one of these, and I don't know how many more chances we'll get, but this is up there for us. We were playing some good cricket leading into this.

"We thought we had a real sniff today, but we got beaten by a good team."