Indian Thought Latest News & Views
New Delhi. After a brilliant performance by the bowlers, half-centuries from KL Rahul and captain Rohit Sharma beat New Zealand by 7 wickets in the second T20 match. With this victory, Team India has also taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match T20 series. India defeated New Zealand by five wickets in the first T20 at Jaipur. Indian bowlers bowled tightly so that New Zealand’s team could only manage 153 runs for six wickets. Chasing this target, the Indian team won by scoring 155 for three wickets in 17.2 overs. Rishabh Pant (12 not out in six balls) scored two consecutive sixes in the 18th over to give victory to the team. Venkatesh Iyer also remained unbeaten on 12 runs (11 balls two fours). New Zealand captain Tim Southee (for 16 runs in four overs) took all three wickets of India.
Rahul and Rohit got the team off to a great start with a partnership of 117 runs in 80 balls for the first wicket. The team’s score was 79 runs in ten overs. After this, Rahul completed his half-century in 40 balls with four fours and two sixes. India’s first blow came in the 14th over when Rahul was caught at deep square leg by playing high off New Zealand captain Southee’s slow off-cutter. Rahul scored 65 runs in 49 balls (6 fours and 2 sixes). Rohit completed his half-century in 35 balls with five sixes and one four by hitting six sixes on Adam Milne. Saudi then ended Rohit’s 55-run innings on a slow ball, whose catch was caught by Martin Guptill.
Suryakumar Yadav (01), who scored a half-century in the last match, became the third victim of Saudi by being bowled by playing two balls. Earlier, after being invited to bat, New Zealand made a good start in the powerplay and scored 64 runs for the loss of one wicket, which looked like the team would post a score of 180-plus but the Indian bowlers curbed them. The spin pair of Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel did wonders in the middle overs. Harshal Patel, who made his debut for India, took two wickets for 25 runs. Experienced Ashwin took 19 runs and Axar Patel took one wicket each for 26 runs. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Deepak Chahar got one wicket each.
New Zealand got off to a good start thanks to openers Martin Guptill (31 off 15 balls) and Daryl Mitchell (31 runs). Both of them added 48 runs in 26 balls for the first wicket. During this, Guptill became the highest run-scorer in T20 International cricket, leaving behind Virat Kohli (3227 runs in 95 matches) as soon as he completed 10 runs. He now has 3248 runs in 111 matches. Rohit Sharma (3086 runs) is at number three in this list.
India’s first success was given by Deepak Chahar to Guptill, who sent this bowler’s first ball for a six. But Guptill tried to play high on the second ball and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant took his catch. Then Mark Chapman came out to bat, who played a half-century in the first match. He was heading towards a big innings here as well, as he and Mitchell added 31 runs in 27 balls. But in the ninth over, after hitting Axar Patel for a four, Chapman was caught by KL Rahul in an attempt to play a big shot. He scored 21 runs in 17 balls with three fours.
Harshal Patel, the first uncapped bowler to get the ‘Purple Cap’ in this stage of the Indian Premier League, took his first international wicket in the 12th over in the form of Mitchell (3 fours in 28 balls). Mitchell tried to play a good length ball at long on and New Zealand lost a big wicket. Harshal, who was included in the playing XI in place of injured Mohammad Siraj, took his second wicket in the form of Glenn Phillips (34 runs, 21 balls, one four, three sixes) who picked up the ball and took an easy catch by the fielder. Bhuvneshwar then got Jimmy Neesham out caught by the wicketkeeper.
