‘‘What could I have done better?’’ Maddy Green gets ready to Make Some Noise

The Wellington Blaze were chasing a four-peat in the Twenty20 Super Smash last summer, but came undone in the final against the Canterbury Magicians.

Maddy Green is leading the way as they look to bounce back this summer and also has her sights set on a place in the White Ferns squad for the one-day World Cup, to be played in New Zealand in March and April.

Ahead of the Blaze’s first home T20 match this season, she was a prime subject for this week’s edition of Back Chat, the series where we grill New Zealand sporting personalities.

After losing the last Super Smash final in dramatic fashion, how badly do you want to get back on top?

It was disappointing to lose in the final last year, but to be fair, I thought Canterbury were probably the more consistent side last season and thoroughly deserved their title. It was just a shame we couldn’t make it another win at home, with the Firebirds there as well.

I thought it was a really exciting game of cricket. It ebbed and flowed – at one point I thought we were in the box seat and then the way that

Lea [Tahuhu] came out and absolutely tonked it around the park just took the game away.

How long did it hurt for at the time?

Particularly as a captain, you reflect on the game and you think: ‘What could I have done differently to put us in a position where we would have won that game?’

I think about the different bowling changes that I would have made and personally as well, contributions with the bat.

When you lose games like that, you sit back and say, what could I have done better?

In T20 cricket you can have one player that takes a game away from you, and I thought Lea Tahuhu

batted out of her skin, which from a White Ferns point of view, was quite cool to see.

You’ve got your first home Super Smash match since then this Sunday against the Central Hinds and Cricket Wellington is promoting its Make Some Noise campaign and the video resources in its online mental health and wellbeing hub. Is mental health something you’ve become more and more aware of over the course of your career?

I made the White Ferns at a really early age and something that probably held me back from being successful at the international level early on in my career was probably more the mental aspect of the game. It’s something that’s definitely coming into more focus now. Over the past few years we’ve got more access to sports’ psychologists than we ever did when I first started the programme and I think it’s a great thing. The difference between good players and great players is their ability to concentrate and focus when the pressure’s on and to perform under that pressure. Talking about what skills you need and how we feel that we perform best under pressure and what skills and tools are useful is only a good thing.

Hopefully there might be some young budding cricketers or other sportspeople out there watching those videos that might take something away from that, and it might help them perform, whether it’s at cricket or any other sort of sport.

You’re heading into the final White Ferns camp of the year this week, ahead of the World Cup. How important was it for you to score your first halfcentury in three years in the win over England at Leicester?

‘‘When you lose you sit back and say, ‘what could I have done better?’’’

It was really important.

I know I’ve had the technical skills to be able to put a performance like that together, but to do it against one of the better teams in the world when we really needed to win, it was really pleasing.

On that tour, we had a couple of games where it could have gone either way and we just didn’t perform in the moments of pressure . . . we didn’t really have anyone there to finish the job or just be clinical at the end and make sure we got over the line, so for me, I was just super focused on trying to be there at the end for the team.