India’s biggest T20I loss: The stand-in Indian captain admitted being outplayed across departments in the first T20I against New Zealand.
During the first T20I of the ongoing India’s tour of New Zealand at Wellington, New Zealand defeated India by 80 runs to go 1-0 up in the series. Nothing seemed to have gone right for India captain Rohit Sharma after he won the toss and put the hosts in to bat.
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After being set a target of 220 runs to chase, India were bundled out for 139 in 19.2 overs. Wicket-keeper batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who came in to bat at No. 5, top-scored for the visitors scoring 39 (31) with the help of five fours and a six. With bowling figures of 4-0-17-3, Tim Southee was the pick of the Kiwi bowlers.
Earlier, a swift 86-run opening partnership between Tim Seifert and Colin Munro aided the Kiwis to post 219-6 in their allotted quota of 20 overs. Top-scoring for his team, wicket-keeper batsman Seifert ended up scoring 84 (43) with the help of seven fours and seven sixes.
An exciting start to the T20I series! A record total at @WestpacStadium and 5 T20I wins in a row at the venue. Also complete the winning start to the Double-Headers with the @WHITE_FERNS #NZvIND pic.twitter.com/XzcCAlF1IV
— BLACKCAPS (@BLACKCAPS) February 6, 2019
He starred with 84 off 43 to get the Blackcaps off to a flying start – Tim Seifert is the first #NZvIND T20I Player of the Match! 👏 pic.twitter.com/tzZgb1eyIV
— ICC (@ICC) February 6, 2019
Speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, Sharma accepted the match to be a tough one and pinpointed India’s poor start as one of the major reason behind the defeat. “It was a tough game. We were outplayed in all three departments,” Sharma said.
“We didn’t start well and we knew that 200 wasn’t going to be an easy chase although the grounds are small here. But we kept losing wickets and that threw us off. We have chased such targets in the past and that is why we played with eight batsmen, but we didn’t have small partnerships and that made it tough while chasing such a big target,” he added.
While the Indian captain praised the hosts for playing well, he laid emphasis on the chasing well in the past and the presence of eight batsmen behind the decision of batting first.
Today’s loss in Wellington was India’s heaviest defeat by margin of runshttps://t.co/nsggXgDAlm #NZvIND pic.twitter.com/YKl6t20VDE
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) February 6, 2019
Basically, India have had two good overs out of nine so far. Can’t win like that.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) February 6, 2019
Not surprised to see Shankar at no.3 because of situation. Early wicket, tall chase, Pant’s firepower held back. His chance will come. Meanwhile.. ‘flexibility’ as the coach said. #NZvInd
— Chetan Narula (@chetannarula) February 6, 2019
“New Zealand though played well, they had partnerships that allowed them to get such a big score. We need to go to Auckland, assess the conditions and take it forward.
“As a team, we have been good at chasing down targets which is why we play with eight batsmen. We believe that whatever the target is in front of us we can chase it down, but we just couldn’t do it tonight,” Sharma concluded.
