The New Zealand”s tour of India didn”t create a lot of buzzes. Barring Virat Kohli”s 200th ODI, no newspaper headlines were talking about it. It was always supposed to be a low profile series. Anyways at the end of the day, they are games of cricket and the excitement will always build up on the day of matches.
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai was a venue for first of the three ODI matches. Whenever a match is played here you can rest assured that crowd will turn up in huge numbers, no matter against which team India is playing. But the occasion was big. It was Indian captain”s 200th ODI! Virat Kohli won the all-important toss and had no hesitation in batting first. The wicket did not look like a typical Wankhede pitch. The ball was not coming on to the bat nicely. But there was a chance of dew coming in later in the evening.
India lost both their openers pretty cheaply. Dhawan tried to run the ball down towards the third man only to nick it while Rohit after hitting 2 sixes of Southee went for an expansive slog missing it completely and got knocked over. Boult had got New Zealand off to a sensational start and now it was time for other bowlers to put breaks on scoring.
Meanwhile, Jadhav joined Kohli at the crease. As their partnership was starting to look dangerous, Jadhav lobbed one straight to Santner for 12. India was now in all sorts of trouble at 71/3. Dinesh Karthik was the next man in. He played some crisRoss Taylor
shots and rotated the strike well. Just after Kohli got his 50, Karthik top-edged the ball to fine leg. Thereafter MS Dhoni (25) and Hardik Pandya (16) got off to starts but failed to convert into big scores.
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli held up one end and scored a magnificent hundred. It was his 31st, going past Ricky Ponting”s 30. A 15-ball 26 from Bhuvaneshwar helped India reach the score of 280.
In reply, New Zealand got off to a good start with Munro scoring 28. They then lost 2 wickets in quick succession including big fish Kane Williamson for 6. It was all up to Guptill and Taylor to anchor the run chase. However, Guptill fell soon for 32 and India were on top now with New Zealand 80/3.
Tom Latham joined Taylor at the crease. An opening batsman, Latham has pushed down the order by New Zealand because of his ability to maneuver the spinners. And it did pay off. Taylor and Latham took their time before starting to crescendo. Wickets in the middle overs were the only way India could win and they made sure India didn”t get any. They did not even give India half chances. With every run being scored, Virat started to look a worried man.
They shared a partnership of 200. Latham completed his century and Taylor got out for 95 but it was too late. The winning runs were scored by Henry Nicolls with a four and New Zealand won by 6 wickets.
– by Atharva Apte
