A
brilliant century, his 26th ODI ton, and an unbeaten knock of 154 by
Virat Kohli steered Team India to a 7 wicket victory over New Zealand in Mohali
on Sunday and a 2-1 lead in the five-match ODI series. As a much-awaited silver
lining Captain Cool under pressure, MS Dhoni joined the vice-captain in the chase
of 286 runs promoting himself to no.4 position in the batting order and
contributing a solid 80 runs consisting
of 3 sixes and 6 fours. The duo came together when India were is some spot of
trouble losing both the openers at 41/2 in the 9th over and added
151 runs taking the team score to 192 in 36th over when Dhoni fell
to Henry. Mohali has been a high scoring ground with the chasing team winning
in the last three consecutive matches. Dhoni kept on winning the toss in this
Series, and here he naturally chose the fielding option once again.
Put
into bat the Kiwis started well and were in a position of strength at 153/2 in
only the 29th over looking good for a total of over 300 runs which
was really required to create some pressure for the might of India batting. But
it was not to be. As is seen regularly in this tour of India, New Zealand again
had a middle order collapse losing 6 wickets for just the addition of 46 runs
at 199/8 thanks again to some inspired bowling by Amit Mishra and Jaspreet Bumarah. But for
some rear-guard action by Neesham and Henry that finally took the score to 285
all out the match would’ve been a rank walkover for India. However, the Kiwis
must have been aware of the fact that in the last match they made India cower
with a total of only 242 runs.
If
at all the visitors enjoyed any hope of creating some pressure it all went up
in the air as Taylor dropped a regulation catch offered by Kohli early on when
he made just 6 runs. That was unpardonable and the costliest lapse, and from
that point onwards Kohli was unstoppable. With a steady Manish Pandey at the
end overs, Virat Kohli saw India home in the 49th over. With two
matches coming up—on 26th and 29th—the Series is still
open. One question that comes to mind is that India perhaps would not be
looking for a win riding on a Virat Kohli great knock every time. The other
batsmen need to fire, particularly Rohit Sharma. The Indian bowlers have been
doing a good job so far, but they too should learn to apply pressure when odds
are hugely in their favour.
