Of all the teams in this Champions Trophy, New Zealand have had the toughest travel schedule. They began their tournament in Karachi, went to Rawalpindi next, arrived in Dubai to play India in their final group game, played a semi-final in Lahore, and have now traveled back to Dubai for the final.

But he did speak about the demands their hectic travel schedule put on his players. None of New Zealand's games, additionally, were washed out.

"There's no doubt that coming here after Lahore - we had a full day of travel yesterday - takes it out of you a little bit," Stead said. His team chose not to train on Friday, two days out from the final, using that day to recuperate as well.

"But we've got a couple of days now, a little bit of recovery and a little bit of planning and training towards the game. But I guess we're deep into the tournament now and sometimes it's not always a lot of training that you need. It's just getting your body and your mind right to compete in the final. That will be our key focus over the next two days."

On India playing their whole tournament in Dubai, Stead had this to say:

"They're not decisions that come across my desk anyway. For us, it's something that we can't control, so it's really just getting on with it. Yes, India have played their four matches here. We're lucky enough to have had one here against them. It was a good match, without us quite putting our best foot forward as well. Wherever you play, you just have to go up and be able to be better than them on the day, and that's our focus."

New Zealand now also have to adjust from having played their semi-final at the highest-scoring venue in the tournament, to a Dubai surface that has tended to take substantial spin, and where par scores have generally been the lowest in the competition. In their group match against India, made 249 for 9, before New Zealand were bowled out for 205.

"I think that's just about adapting and working out on your feet what you think that par score is for the day," Stead said. "I think the danger is you come from scoring 360-odd in a game and you think you'll do that again immediately and you go a little bit [too] hard. So, for us, it's just working out what is the right tactics on the day, who we are faced up against as well, and then adapting to that.

"It's also about communication between the batsmen in the middle, and making sure they're having good communications around who is the right player to take risks against and what that might look like."