Indian cricket team under the leadership of Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid had beaten New Zealand in T20 three match series 3-0. Rohit Sharma batted in style and used the team resources intelligently to beat New Zealand in all the three matches decisively.
The third and last match was played in Kolkota on Sunday. Rohit won the toss and took a risky decision of batting first when there was hog. Chasing a target of 185 runs, the New Zealand players started well. The New Zealand team looked tired after a grueling campaign in the Gulf. Indian bowlers bowled very well and the New Zealand batters had no answers to some of the balls thrown at them. Martin Guptill was the lone New Zealand batter who stood up to the Indian bowling and made a half century. New Zealand was folded up for 111 runs in 17.2 overs conceding a win by 73 runs to India. Axar Patel took three valuable wickets.
Earlier, Rohit and the new opener Ishan Kishan, who came in place of KL Rahul, played beautiful shots. Kishan had made 29 in 21 balls before getting out. Then Suryakumar Yadav came and left without scoring a single run. Rohit who was playing a stylish innings left after making 56 in 31 balls. He had hit three sixes. He scored his 30th T20 half century overtaking Indian test captain Virat Kohli who made 29 half centuries. Then came wicket keeper Rishabh Pant who left soon after making four runs. Shreyas made a flashy 25 in 20 balls and Venkatesh Iyyar made 20 runs off 15 balls. It was Harshal Patel and Deepak Chahar who gave stability to the innings by scoring 18 runs out of 11 balls and 21 in 8 balls respectively. In 20 overs india piled up 184 runs. Among the New Zealand bowlers, captain Mitchell Santner was very successful who took three wickets in four overs conceding just 27 runs.
