- Rahul Dravid- Rohit Sharma start their combination on a winning note
- Surykumar Yadav and Rohit shine with bat while Aswin does well with ball
- Next match is on Friday, the 19th, at Ranchi
India had beaten New Zealand in the first T20 International, played in Jaipur on Wednesday, by five wickets. The Rahul Dravid – Rohit Sharma combination which succeeded Ravi Sashtry – Kohli started off with a win against the team which had beaten India in the second match in the Gulf for the World Cup. India now leads 1-0 in the three-match series.
Indian had made it a heavy weather at the end of the match which should have been wrapped up inside 18 overs. Chasing a target of 165 runs for victory, India reach half the target in ten overs. Rohit, the opener and captain, made 48 off 36 balls and Suryakumar Yadav, who came in the third slot in place of Virat Kohli who was rested, piled up 62 off 40 balls on a good batting pitch in Sawai Mansingh Stadium. Rohit and Rahul gave India a good start scoring 50 runs in five overs. Suryakumar Yadav came in when Rahul was out after scoring 15 runs. Yadav had hit some quality shots over the fence. He made his third fifty in T20 but soon got out when the score was at 144 for 3 wickets. Wicket keeper Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer could not score in the last overs wasting opportunities. Venkatesh Iyer who came in place of Shreyas hit a boundary and lost his wicket trying a reverse shot. Both the Iyers scored 5 and 4 respectively. However, Pant was smiling amidst the ruins and managed to score the winning runs with only two balls to spare. Dravid and Rohit had some tense moments at the fag-end when India needed nine runs in six balls.
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New Zealand bowler Trent Boult dismissed Rohit Sharma at 48 in his first spell and then took the wicket of Suryakant Yadav for 62 runs.
In the New Zealand’s innings, Martin (70 off 42 balls) and Mark Chapman (63 off 50) had laid a sound foundation for the innings giving the impression that New Zealand may go up to 180s. But they had to reckon with experienced spinner Ravichandran Aswin who struck twice giving away 23 runs in four overs. The other spinner in the side Bhuvaneshwar Kumar also bowled four overs and took two wickets giving away 24 runs. Figures of Aswin and Kumar were almost the same.
Both New Zealand and India which had solid foundation had to slow down at the end of the innings because of some good bowling from the other side. But India recovered from bungling in time to win the match.
