India and New Zealand resumed their T20I battle in the second of the three-match series at Rajkot on Saturday with the hosts coming into the game with a 1-0 lead.
Kane Williamson won the toss and elected to bat first on a flat deck and the Black Caps vindicated his decision after putting up 196 runs on the scoreboard.
The hosts never looked like chasing down the visitors’ total and ultimately fell short by 40 runs as the Black Caps pulled level at 1-1 in the series.
We look at the two good and bad performances from the match after the Kiwis stormed right back into the series.
The Good
Colin Munro’s second T20I ton leads Kiwi charge
Munro has a fearsome reputation when it comes to the limited-overs format and the fact that he hit a 56-ball ton against Bangladesh in January extenuates that fear factor.
The 30-year-old opening batsman had to take a backseat as partner Martin Guptill went about attacking the Indian bowling attack in the initial overs.
Munro would not miss out on the action for too long and once he got going, there would be no respite for the bowlers.
The left-hander displayed the brute force in his bottom-hand as he muscled away the white ball beyond the boundary ropes at will.
Munro hit seven massive sixes and the same amount of boundaries as brought up his second T20I ton in only 54 deliveries, bettering his 56-ball century against Bangladesh. He stayed unbeaten to carry his bat in impressive fashion with a 58-ball 109.
Trent Boult removes both Indian openers in fiery first over
With a huge total of 196 to defend, New Zealand would have gone into the break feeling pretty confident but with India’s batting remaining its forte, nothing could be taken for granted by Williamson’s men.
Boult started off the India tour with a bang with impressive performances in the opening two ODI matches but has since then gone off the boil a fair bit after having his worst ODI and T20I outings.
He reminded us why he is the Black Caps’ greatest threat with the ball when he removed Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma in his very first over.
The left-arm pacer castled Dhawan’s middle-stump with an in-swinging delivery with only his second ball and then got the prize wicket of Sharma with the final delivery of the over.
The Indian vice-captain was caught behind after attempting to glide Boult’s delivery down to third-man. With the hosts reduced to 2-11 inside two overs, it would only take a Herculean effort to chase down 197. In the end, Boult’s first over might very well have extinguished India’s hopes.
The Bad
Mohammed Siraj has a debut to forget
Siraj had been handed his maiden India cap following impressive showings in the Ranji Trophy, IPL and with India A.
Given a spot in the starting XI on Saturday following Ashish Nehra’s retirement, Siraj had a baptism with fire in Rajkot as New Zealand’s batsmen made merry.
Given the new ball responsibility by Kohli, the 23-year-old pacer was given the coldest of welcomes to international cricket by Martin Guptill who took two boundaries off his very first over.
Siraj was taken out of the attack and brought back after the Power Play but had to contend with a well set Munro who tonked two huge sixes in his second over.
The Hyderabad-born pacer ultimately did get his maiden international wicket in the form of Williamson but ultimately finished with figures of 1-53 off his four overs.
India’s spinners get a hammering
After New Zealand’s openers had got the tourists off to a flier, the responsibility of stemming the flow of runs fell to India’s spin-attack of Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel.
Chahal was brought on by Kohli in the fifth over of the batting power play and was welcomed to the crease with two huge sixes and a boundary by Guptill’s bat.
Patel on the other hand started well, going for only four runs in his first over, but once Munro got set, India’s spinners were taken to the cleaners.
Chahal was surprisingly willing to give the ball a lot of air on a flat pitch and got the treatment his deliveries deserved while Patel was blown away by Munro’s extraordinary power.
While Chahal improved as the game wore on, Patel only got worse and so expensive had been India’s spinners that Kohli elected not to bowl them out.
Overall, 75 runs were collected from the seven overs bowled between the pair, in stark contrast to the Kiwi spinners who bowled with much more control and potency.