Turkey struggled too with the hot weather - the climate there is no warmer than NZ in most populous areas and often even colder in winter.
Thats not really true average temps for Istanbul in summer are high 20's (thats the average) In Ankara it is not uncommon to get temp in high 30s
don't really think we can use weather as an excuse, as has been pointed out the English seemed to do ok
If we didn't handle the weather that comes down to poor planning from our management. It's not like we only had a couple of weeks to prepare and didn't know it was going to be hot in India
It's true that a team of real ability like England (only lost on pens to Spain in the UEFA u-17 Final in May) will do well no matter the climate.
But a weaker team like ours will struggle even more if not used to the heat and humidity.
England made a big thing in pre-tournament publicity of consulting England Cricket and the Indian senior national football coach (an Englishman) to help prepare for the conditions.
If the NZ team management didn't do that, as you say, that's poor.
I've been to Istanbul and my mother lived in Turkey in her youth.
They've had some horrendous summers recently - up to 39 degrees this July I believe.
It's been getting much hotter in recent years with global warming but never used to be - the historical average high for July is 27 degrees, average temp in July, 23 degrees.
http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weatherall.php3...
Winter in Istanbul is really cold- some days it never gets above below zero when it snows.