Man of the Match: The Indian all-rounder won a T20I match award after more than six years at the Eden Gardens tonight.
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During the third T20I of the ongoing New Zealand’s tour of India in Kolkata, India beat New Zealand by 73 runs to register a 3-0 series victory. In addition to the win margin, India winning a match after electing to bat first speaks highly about their domination in this series.
A 69-run opening partnership between captain Rohit Sharma (56) and Ishan Kishan (29) witnessed India scoring 69 runs in a boundary-filled powerplay. In the next 10 overs, India scored 71 runs and lost half their side in the process.
Had it not been for Harshal Patel (18) and Deepak Chahar’s (21*) cameos in the death overs, India wouldn’t have scored 36 runs in the last three overs to set the opposition a 185-run target.
Leading New Zealand for the third time, Mitchell Santner led from the front to pick bowling figures of 4-0-27-3 which included dismissals of Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav (0) and Rishabh Pant (4).
Man of the Match today IND vs NZ 3rd T20I
Sharma’s ploy of introducing spin in the form of all-rounder Axar Patel in just the third over saw the left-arm spinner picking as many as three wickets in his first two overs.
Once the visitors lost Daryl Mitchell (5), Mark Chapman (0) and Glenn Phillips (0) in quick succession, there was no staging a recovery for them despite opening batter Martin Guptill scoring a hard-hitting 51 (36) with the help of four fours and four sixes.
While Axar Patel was the pick of the Indian bowlers with bowling figures of 3-0-9-3, Harshal Patel was the second-best bowler after having dismissed James Neesham (3) and Ish Sodhi (9).
“Earlier, when I got hit, I used to bowl quicker and quicker. Now I try to vary my pace. I try to stay a step ahead of the batter about what he’s trying to do. There was help in this wicket. Ball was stopping. So I just tried hitting good areas because the wicket had some help,” Axar Patel was quoted as saying by Star Sports after winning the ‘Man of the Match’ award during the post-match presentation ceremony.
