India vs New Zealand: Overconfident Kiwis mess up T20 record against India with tame performance

No team had dared to challenge India on their home turf in the past few years. Several teams arrived, strove to conquer and left empty handed in the end. When the Indian juggernaut rampaged over the English and Aussies, it seemed like no team in the world could stop this Virat Kohli-led side in India. Enter New Zealand. With a slew of bits-and-pieces cricketers and some lesser-known names, New Zealand relied on tactical nous to plot the downfall of the mighty Indian empire. Their High Performance Unit laid out dry wickets back home and forced the players to play spin, learn the sweep shot and master the dust bowls. They even sent an A team to India a month before and picked just nine players in the main team, opting to choose the remaining six from the A team already in India. It was sheer brilliance in planning, unforeseen and untested by bigger teams that had toured the sub-continent. [caption id=“attachment_4188781” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] India’s players celebrate the wicket of New Zealand’s Colin Munro. AP[/caption] But could they execute it? They did. In the first ODI, Latham and Taylor swept India out of the contest while Trent Boult and Co dished out some suffocating stuff at the batsmen. It was a complete victory. They lost the next game and prepared frantically for the decider at Kanpur, only to lose after a performance that deserves much appreciation. The Black Caps might have lost the ODIs 2-1 but the fighting spirit and temperament shown earned them the respect of fans and opposition alike. Cometh the T20s, New Zealand were expected to ace the Indians. After all, they had a 5-0 record against India in T20s. Not once since the advent of the shortest format of the game had India been able to a score a win against the Kiwis. Given the kind of performance New Zealand dished out in the ODIs, the T20s were expected to be a tougher test for the Indians. Opting to bowl first, with the dew expected to arrive later, New Zealand had an additional edge as well. And Mitchell Santner walked in to open the bowling. The Kiwi spinners — Santner, Ish Sodhi and Nathan McCullum — had fabricated a special win over the Indians, at Nagpur a year back, in the inaugural match of World T20 2016. They knew quite well that India sometimes dig their own hole on home wickets. They knew how to stop Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan. All the planning and hours of hardwork in the nets were aimed at plotting the undoing of India’s top order. Santner walked in and bowled an immaculate first over, spewing out Jadeja-like arm balls and having Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan in a tangle. Just one run came off the over. Trent Boult ran in from the other end and dished out a juicy half-volley that Dhawan wanted to drive extravagantly. But the ball swung away and missed his bat by a whisker. The Kiwis had arrived, or so we thought. That ball from Boult turned out to be the last good thing that happened to them in the match. In search of swing, Boult kept bowling a middle-stump line to Dhawan and faltered big time as his Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate plundered 28 runs off 13 balls including six boundaries, four of which came on the leg-side. https://twitter.com/CricProf/status/925739884807106560 The battle wasn’t without drama though. In his fifth ball to the southpaw, Boult managed to force a cut shot in the air only for Santner to drop a sitter at cover point. None of their bowling changes made sense or clicked. Tim Southee came in to bowl the third over replacing Santner, who had sent in an exceptional first over. It was a decision with little logic. Southee was dumped for eight in the over, including a six that set Rohit Sharma going. Colin de Grandhomme nearly got a wicket off every one of his first three balls; only that he didn’t. There was the customary miscue that landed safe, a near outside edge and a dropped catch. Things were starting to go haywire for the Kiwis and a no-ball could only have worsened things. De Grandhomme sent down two in his next over, with one of the resultant free-hits sent to the fence by Dhawan. When he finally came close to grabbing another scalp, that of the Indian skipper Virat Kohli in the 18th over, Martin Guptill put down another catch, the third spill of the innings, at deep mid-wicket. Not only did the Kiwis allow Sharma and Dhawan to stitch the third highest T20I opening partnership (154 runs) but also allowed the Indians to finish off on a psychologically important 200+ total. Their bowling had been a mess, their fielding messier and the captaincy lacked imagination. New Zealand’s hope rested on their batsmen who had put in inspiring performances in the ODIs. However, they had little firepower on the T20 scale post their opening pair and sorely wanted one of the two — Martin Guptill and Colin Munro — to click. But India had other plans. Kohli’s ruse of bringing Yuzvendra Chahal upfront to tempt the out-of-form Guptill worked. It was as though the ODI double centurion could not get a single thing right on this tour. When he did manage to launch Chahal straight over his head, achieving height but not the distance, Hardik Pandya pulled off a stunner at the long-off boundary ropes. Munro was undone by a Bhuvneshwar special yorker and New Zealand were left wobbling at 18/2. In Kane Williamson and Tom Latham, they had two trustworthy, experienced batsmen capable of building a solid platform. However, it never materialised even though the skipper threatened to do as much by unfurling an eye-catching scoop shot to fetch six against Bhuvneshwar. But soon, he slashed at a wide Pandya delivery to edge behind, a quite uncharacteristic dismissal for a usually wonderful player. Nine out of ten times, the Kiwi skipper would have nailed that cut shot. Not today, though. New Zealand just couldn’t get anything right at the Kotla. In Axar Patel’s final over, everything came apart for the Kiwis. Tom Bruce miscued a big slog sweep and De Grandhomme followed suit the very next ball, with an eerily similar shot, as New Zealand crumbled to 84/5. Henry Nicholls, their last ray of hope in assisting Latham, ran himself out as Virat Kohli picked up a direct hit to compound the woes of the visitors. Latham’s stumping in the next over was the final nail in the Kiwis’ coffin. Williamson’s words at the post-match presentation ceremony sum up New Zealand’s performance. “A disappointing performance from us in all areas," Williamson said. “One that stands out is the fielding. We were very poor there. I don’t think we can use the ground conditions as an excuse. India were superb and played better. When you’re chasing a total like that which was certainly many above par, you do need to take risks. It was disappointing but we will be back in Rajkot. We couldn’t quite use the spinners the way we would have liked to, which was to control the rate of scoring, but they bowled very well.” They had come out to play this match as a rejuvenated, confident group after an impressive performance in the ODIs but little went according to their plans. They were in complete disarray, flopping with the ball, on the field and with the willow. Unlike in the ODIs, not one guy stepped up to lift them from the shambles. Their no-show also meant a closure to an enviable record against India in T20s, one that they would have loved to keep going.