Hello people, The first T20 match of the series between India and New Zealand took place at the JSCA International Stadium Complex in Ranchi. The game was a crucial one for both teams, as they aimed to take the lead in the series.
Toss
India won the toss and decided to bowl first against New Zealand. The Indian team believed that the pitch would offer more assistance to the bowlers in the first innings. And they wanted to take advantage of that.
New Zealand’s Innings
New Zealand’s Conway and Mitchell were the stand-out performers in their innings. Conway, who opened the innings, played a crucial role in setting the platform for the team with his 52 runs off 35 balls. Mitchell, who came in at number 3, continued the excellent work done by Conway and scored 59 off 30 balls. With the help of these two players, New Zealand managed to score 176-6 in their 20 overs.
India’s Innings
The Indian team had a poor start to their innings as their opening batsmen, Shubhman Gill and Ishan Kishan, failed to make a significant impact. Gill was dismissed for 7 runs off 6 balls, and Kishan for 4 runs off 5 balls. Putting India in a difficult position. Surya Kumar Yadav and Washington Sundar tried to bring the team back into the match with their excellent performances. Sundar made 50 runs off 28 balls and Yadav scored 47 off 34 balls. However, the rest of the team couldn’t keep up the tempo and India could only score 155-9 in their 20 overs, resulting in a 21-run defeat.
Player of the match
Daryl Mitchel who scored 59 (not out) runs off 30 balls became the player of the match.
Post Match comments
No one even thought that the wicket would play like that and both teams were surprised. But they played better cricket on this and that’s why the result ended up like that. Actually the new ball was turning more than the old one and the way it spun, the way it bounced, it caught us by surprise. But somehow we pulled it back and were in the game till Surya and myself were batting. In hindsight, I don’t think this wicket was 177, we were with the ball and conceded 20-25 runs. It is a young group and we will only learn from this. The way he bowled, batted and fielded, it was Washington against New Zealand today.
Hardik Pandya (Indian Skipper)
It was a bit of a shock for everyone involved, how much it kinda spun in the second innings. But it was a great game and it was pretty tight at the end, we saw a lot of runs in the ODI series and it was nice to see the ball spin a bit more. I don’t think we were ever safe, 170-odd was nice with Daryl hitting a couple over and he batted extremely well, we knew we had a sniff with 180. It was nice to chip away some wickets in the powerplay and we had troubled doing that in the ODIs. At the toss we were going to bowl because we know chasing is so good over here and especially with the dew. That’s always the challenge (on captain using himself). You don’t want to be seen doing the easy overs and stuff like that. We knew it was spinning in the powerplay and it was nice to chip one out.
Mitchell Santner (New Zealand Skipper)
Bottom
it was an exciting match and the New Zealand team outplayed India in all aspects of the game. The Indian team will need to come up with a better performance in the next match to level the series.
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