India Beat New Zealand By 7 Wickets, Win Paytm T2OI Series With 2-0 Lead!
India have won the Paytm 3-match T20
International Series beating New Zealand by 7 wickets in the second match in
Ranchi today thus taking an unassailable 2-0 lead. In a rather funny contrast
to Virat Kohli making a hat-trick of losing tosses in the T20 World Cup-2021
the new captain Rohit Sharma won his second consecutive toss in this series
after Jaipur so far; however, this evening the dew factor was already there
with winter season setting in the eastern region and it did not give India an undue
advantage while chasing. India made one change bringing in IPL-sensation medium-fast
bowler Harshal Patel replacing Mohammed Siraj while New Zealand made three
changes—bowling all-rounder James Neesham, pacer Adam Milne and spinner Ish
Sodhi, replacing Rachin Ravindra, Todd Astler and Lockie Ferguson.
Put into bat, New Zealand openers Martin
Guptill (31 off just 15 balls) and Daryl Mitchell (31 in 28 balls) made an
explosive start scoring 52 runs in 5 overs and 64 runs in the powerplay of 6
overs, of course losing the wicket of Guptill to Chahar at the team score of 48
in the 5th over. The first over was an eventful one: the first ball
going for a four through the slips nearly caught; the second ball hit for
another four; in the third ball a high but easy catch dropped by KL Rahul who
later made amends by taking a good catch to dismiss Mark Chapman off Axar
Patel; and 14 runs were scored by Guptill in that over by Bhuvaneshwar Kumar. The
second over by Deepak Chahar was hit for 12 runs. The spinners, Axar and
Ashwin, had to be called in along with Harshal Patel. As New Zealand tried to
keep up the momentum they started losing wickets at regular intervals thanks to
some tight bowling by the trio and also Chahar coming back to take a wicket in
his third over. Thanks to Phillips (34 in 21 balls) the Kiwis finally was able
to put up a rather not-good-enough total of 153/6. Big hitter Neesham was a
huge disappointment as apart from just 3 runs in 12 balls he only managed to
break his bat before getting out. Harshal on his debut captured 2/25 in four
overs while all four other bowlers took a wicket each.
India too made a solid start with their
openers Rahul and Rohit putting up 50 runs in the 7th over and at
63/0 in 9 overs it was a tad slow and time to speed up the scoring to which
Rohit responded immediately with a huge six off Santner, plundering 16 runs in
that over, Rohit being also dropped off a skier by Boult in the 5th
ball. Dropping catches has been a feature of this series affecting both the
teams in Jaipur as well as in Ranchi. There was no looking back from that point
as Rahul raced to his half-century and Rohit not far behind. The duo put up the
100-run partnership in the 12th over, threatening to make the match
a one-sided affair. Rahul, trying to hit another six, fell for 65 in 49 balls
to captain Southee at the team score of 117/1 in the 14th over.
Venkatesh Iyer came in to join Rohit and
it was a good move to give the former a kind of grooming for batting with the
hosts having an easy equation for victory. Rohit, in full flow, reached his
half-century in 35 balls with a huge six off the Milne, and in the next over
the India skipper fell at the same score of 55 to Tim Southee offering a rather
tame catch with India needing just 20 runs in 28 balls. Suryakumar Yadav came
in went for just 1run to Southee again giving him all the 3 wickets to fall. Suddenly
there was a twist in the tale, India needing 17 in 24 losing 3 wickets quickly.
Rishabh Pant settled the issue in the 18th over bowled by Neesham by
hitting 2 sixes of the first 2 balls and India cruising to victory by 7 wickets
with 14 balls to spare. In all, a healthy beginning for the new skipper Rohit
Sharma winning a series leading from the front, regrouping after the disastrous
World Cup under a new coach Rahul Dravid. Now, the 3rd T20I in
Kolkata this Sunday will be a mere formality and more rookies are likely to be
tried, but Dravid aims at winning every match which is the right spirit.
A point
must be made here about the crowds. As the pandemic seemed to have stabilized
in India the BCCI has allowed 100% capacity crowd to be allowed inside the
stadiums after checking vaccination or RT-PCR negative certificates at entry
both in Jaipur and Ranchi, and like in Jaipur the Ranchi stadium was chock-a-block with
spectators most of whom did not bother wearing masks. It becomes a joke to
expect social distancing once you allow 100% capacity crowds. In fact, a worried
advocate filed a PIL in Jharkhand High Court for the postponement of the Ranchi
match demanding 50% capacity crowd to be maintained for entry. This worry
cannot be dismissed easily due to the behavior patterns of the COVID-19 virus
and the experience of Europe under a heavy surge of infections again,
particularly Russia, Germany, Netherlands and Austria. Due to a careless
Covidiotic behavior in the beginning of the year saw India suffer from the most
horrible second wave and one cannot yet be certain about more waves in future.
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