Intro:

Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc reflected on the defeat by World Cup co-hosts New Zealand and looked ahead to Australia's next Pool A game, against Afghanistan, on Wednesday in Perth.

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English) Mitchell Starc, Australia: (on the loss to New Zealand)

"To get so close and to lose by one wicket (is) pretty disappointing. As I said before, wickets don't matter unless you get the win. Look we just didn't do enough on the day throughout the course of the match to deserve to win. Yeah, we got close, but I think the way we performed throughout the day we didn't deserve to win".

SOUNDBITE (English) Mitchell Starc, Australia: (on what a bowler can do when Brendon McCullum starts hitting the ball hard)

"You've just got to assess it and I think we did that well. We changed the game plan a little bit throughout the day to McCullum. He has been batting so well for long time now, so yeah you got to think on your feet sometimes to guys like that. I think Patty Cummins did that well, he changed some pace and.... look, I guess we got close, but not close enough".

SOUNDBITE (English) Mitchell Starc, Australia: (on the game against Afghanistan)

"We have been winning all summer, so yeah, look, one loss hurt us. Wasn't a performance we wanted. We are going to treat it as every other game, coming into Wednesday we are going to prepare well, prepare like every other time, just prepare to win games for Australia".