T20: India win despite Santner’s spell

Captain Santner’s class act with the ball couldn’t prevent India from outclassing New Zealand and winning the series 3-0.

India won the toss and they chose to bat first.

India tried to test themselves as they batted second in the previous two games and wanted their bowlers to bowl in dewy conditions.

India also tried their backup opener Ishan Kishan by resting the in-form KL Rahul.

Ishan played well and had a 50-plus opening stand with Rohit.

Their lower order scored some crucial runs and gave their side at least 20 extra to defend.

Harshal Patel continued his form and took 2 important wickets.

He used his slower variations very well and didn’t allow the batters to score runs freely.

The all-rounder V. Iyer delivered three brilliant overs and also picked up a wicket.

He was used as a sixth-bowling option today.

Yuzvendra Chahal picked up the most important wicket of Martin Guptill who was the top scorer for New Zealand in this match.

Another fifty by Rohit

Rohit Sharma once again played an outstanding innings.

He is in great form and scoring runs easily.

Rohit smashed yet another T20I fifty as he scored 56 runs off just 31 balls including 3 sixes and 5 fours.

Rohit was opening with Ishan Kishan today and had a 69 runs partnership.

It was due to Rohit’s hard-hitting, India made 69 runs in the power play without even losing a wicket.

Santner changed the momentum 

The Indian openers were smashing the bowl hard and India was looking good to score a huge total.

Then Mitchell Santner came into the attack and broke the momentum by dismissing Ishan Kishan (29 off 21) and Suryakumar Yadav (0 off 4) in the same over.

Santner didn’t stop here as he further dismissed Pant in his next over to make the Indian team struggle at a score of 83-3.

The scoring rate slowed down a bit due to these wickets as India did not score any boundary between 6 to 10 overs.

Crucial runs by the lower order

The low-order of team India played brilliantly and they contributed some very important runs to the scoreboard.

Venkatesh and Shreyas rebuild the innings a bit after the dismissal of Rohit.

Both of them played nicely and put up a crucial 36 runs stand before getting dismissed in the space of just three balls.

Then came Harshal and Chahar and they both smashed the ball superbly to score some quick runs and set a good total on the board.

Harshal scored 18 off 11 balls while Chahar made 21 off just 8 balls.

They scored 19 runs off the final over to set 184 runs on the board.

Axar Patel shines with the ball

Axar Patel again showed his aggression as a spinner very well and proved that how brilliant a bowler he is in the shorter format of the game.

He picked up 3 quick wickets at the top and destroyed New Zealand’s top order in his first two overs.

He picked up three wickets for just 9 runs in his 3 overs.

New Zealand collapse

The New Zealand batting lineup was totally outclassed due to some superb bowling from the Indian bowlers.

Martin Guptill was the only New Zealand batter who showed some fight and scored a brilliant 50 but that didn’t help.

The whole New Zealand side was dismissed in the 18th over on just 111 runs.

India 184 for 7 (Rohit 56, Kishan 29, Chahar 21*, Santner 3-27) beat New Zealand111 (Guptill 51, Axar 3-9, Harshal 2-23) by 73 runs