India’s hopes of sweeping New Zealand 5-0 were dented as the visitors cashed in on a selection miscall by Suryakumar Yadav and Gautam Gambhir to win the fourth T20I in Visakhapatnam by a whopping 50 runs.
Surya revealed at the toss that Ishan Kishan was out of this match with a niggle, but instead of replacing the in-form batsman, India went with a sixth bowler in Arshdeep Singh. That meant that Harshit Rana was carded at No 7 and Ravi Bishnoi at No 9, leaving India’s batting thin. Despite a bolstered bowling attack, India conceded 215 runs in 20 overs and a sloppy batting effort ended at 165 in 18.4 overs.
New Zealand, after Surya asked them to bat, piled up 215/7 on the back of a century opening stand between Tim Seifert (62) and Devon Conway (44) with Daryl Mitchell contributing an unbeaten 39 off 18 balls at the end.
Gambhir and Surya ike mixing things up, experimenting, and resting and rotating player, but here they got it wrong. It was a risk, but one that this team, with the series wrapped up, chose to take. And they paid the price, though needlessly. India could have picked Shreyas Iyer instead of a sixth bowler, but chose not to. As it panned out, this was the first time in the series that India’s batting, collectively, failed.
The scorecard pressure was on India when their chase started, and it turned worse when Abhishek Sharma was out first ball, followed by Surya in the second over. Sanju Samson failed again, Rinku Singh hit a couple sixes early on before he was out for 39, Hardik Pandya made just two runs, and when Rana came to bat, India were 82/5 in the 11th over, with the required rate having crossed 14.
Shivam Dube played a lone hand, hitting a 15-ball 50 – which now stands as the third fastest for India – before he was run out at the non-striker’s end off a deflection from Matt Henry’s fingers. Dube slammed seven sixes in his 23-ball 65, but it came too late for an Indian team that had erred in judgement on the night.
Full credit to New Zealand. A total of 215 was very good against an Indian team missing a batter/ New Zealand’s batters took a leaf out of India’s book and kept hitting through the innings, which made for entertaining viewing.
The openers Seifert and Conway raised the 100-run stand in 49 balls, with the latter smashing 36 off his last 13 balls faced. Wickets kept falling – 69 runs off 52 balls for five wickets – but one Kiwi batter or another kept attacking, to keep the pressure on India, and India found themselves with a stiff target to chase.
Glenn Phillips got 24 off 16, Mitchell Santner 11 from six, Zak Foulkes 13 off six, but it was Mitchell’s superb innings, which featured two sixes off Jasprit Bumrah, that stung India the most. The Black Caps’ total is their second-highest in T20Is against India.
India’s fielding was much improved – Rinku held four catches, Pandya nailed a direct hit to get Santner -but even this was bettered by the Kiwis, with Conway’s grab of Abhishek first ball of the chase and a smart return catch from Jacob Duffy getting rid of Surya for 8. Santner was the pick of the bowlers with 3/26 from his four overs.
