The Indian team will be a satisfied dressing room after defeating New Zealand in the T20 series. India were leading the series by 2-0 and had a chance to win the series at Seddon Park, Hamilton.
New Zealand Captain Kane Williamson won the toss and elected to field first, inviting the Indian team to bat first.New Zealand made one change to their line-up as Blair Tickner made way for Scott Kuggeleijn and India played the same XI.
Indian openers started off cautiously as both the openers KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma tried to feel the pitch and wanted to get set on a tricky-spongy pitch in Hamilton. The capitalised well on the bad balls and were aggressive towards Hamish Benett as Rohit Sharma took him to the cleaners in the last over of powerplay as the Indian limited -overs Vice Captain scored 27 runs off the last powerplay over and scored a 23 ball half century.
After the fall of the first wicket India sent Shivam Dube to capitalise on the platform set by the Indian openers,he fell quickly and India found themselves in a spot of bother at 96 for 3 at the end of 11 overs.
Shreyas Iyer and Virat Kohli steadied the ship and Manish Pandey and Ravidra Jadeja gave the finishing touches to help India reach a total of 179 at the end of 20 overs.
The Indian bowlers had a huge task on hand to restrict the Kiwi batting , Openers Guptill and Munro came full throttle and put pressure on the Indian bowlers straight away. It was then Shardul Thakur who took the all important wicket of Guptill to put pressure on the Kiwi batting line up.
Kane Williamson then showed his class and went on to slog all the Indian bowlers especially Jasprit Bumrah who had a rare bad day as the premier bowler went for 45 runs in his 4 overs and was wicketless.
New Zealand needed 9 runs in the last over with Mohammed Shami to ball the final over of the game, India were in tremendous pressure and the first ball was hit for six by Ross Taylor to put the game in New Zealand's kitty but Shami had different plans.
New Zealand needed 2 runs off 4 balls and Shami took the all important wicket of Kane Williamson who was batting at 95 he hit one straight to the Indian Wicket-keeper KL Rahul. Tim Seifert then couldn't connect both the balls and ran one bye run.
It was all on Ross Taylor to finish the game for New Zealand as India had only one favourable result possible a super-over.
Shami bowled a good yorker which was dragged by Ross Taylor onto the stumps and the game went into super-over.
New Zealand batting first in the super-over scored 17 with Guptill and Williamson batting and Jasprit Bumrah bowling in the super over.
Bumrah who had a good record bowling in the super-overs was taken to the cleaners by Kane Williamson.
India coming into bat needed 18 to win , in came the openers KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. India took early runs and found themselves in trouble with 10 required in 2 balls with Rohit Sharma on strike and Tim Southee bowling full throttle.
Rohit then smashed two sixes in two balls one over long on and long off to seal the deal for India in avery nerve wrecking game.
India claimed it's first T20 series against New Zealand away from home. India will now face New Zealand in the 4th T20I at Wellington.
