The Indian Cricket Team registered their highest successful run chase, defeating New Zealand in the first T20I of this five-match T20 series. But what are the three reasons behind the Men in Blue’s victory in this run-fest?
The India vs New Zealand 4th T20I was played at Eden Park in Auckland. The Indians won the toss and decided to bowl first on this flat track. The boundaries were small, and the pitch did not provide much for the bowlers; big scores were expected even before the match started.
The Kiwis got off to a mixed start. They made 67 runs in the powerplay but also lost two wickets. They then also lost two more by the end of the 11th over.
But this is where the game changed. From 113/4 at the end of the 11th, New Zealand made 144 runs in the next nine overs. All but two overs went for 13 runs or more; three overs went for 20 runs or more, and one of them went for a whopping 32 runs.
Just like that, the hosts finished their innings at 259/7. Glenn Phillips scored a mighty hundred, while Michael Bracewell played a rapid innings of 65 off 25.
In response, India lost two wickets in the first over, then lost two more in the powerplay. The defending T20 World Champions never even looked competitive in this game. With no player taking the bull by the horns and playing a memorable innings, the Indian innings petered out at 172/9 in 20 overs, losing the match by 87 runs.
Here, we will look at the 3 reasons New Zealand beat India in the 4th T20 –
NZ Vs IND: 3 Reasons New Zealand Beat India In the 4th T20
3) The Glenn Phillips Show
New Zealand all-rounder Glenn Phillips has been in excellent form so far in this series. In the first two games, where the two sides were quite close, he scored 82* and 70. While he made just 17 in the third game, he made up for it with a century in this one.
When Phillips walked in to bat at No. 4 tonight, New Zealand were at 34/2 in 2.5 overs, in desperate need of someone to stay in the middle and keep the run rate high.
From coming in to bat in the third over, Glenn Phillips stayed at the pitch till the very last over of the innings. He kept his wicket during some challenging spells, when the conditions allowed the bowlers to remain in the game.
By the end of the 10th over, halfway through the innings, the team score was 109/3, and Phillips seemed to be playing the anchor role. Soon after, he reached his half-century in 31 balls, which might seem slow after seeing New Zealand’s final score in this game.
From the start of the 13th over, alongside a blistering Michael Bracewell, Phillips picked the pace up as the two batters continued scoring over 15 runs per over.
18 runs came in the 13th over and 20 came in the 14th. After just seven runs came in the 15th over, Phillips made a charge in the very next over, scoring 32 runs in six balls. Glenn Phillips himself hit a boundary and four sixes in that very over.
By this point, Glenn was reaching the three-digit mark, which he achieved in the 19th over, reaching the milestone in just 46 deliveries, going from 50 to 100 in 15 balls.
Glenn Phillips was the key figure behind New Zealand’s charge in the second half of their innings. While he reached his century, the team managed to make 150 runs in the final 10 overs at 15 rpo. Naturally, he was named the Player of the Match in the end and is a serious contender for Player of the Innings.
Check Out: IND vs NZ
2) India Losing The Plot For 10 Straight Overs
This series has seen the bowling attacks of both teams bleed runs. In all six innings across the two teams in this series before this game, the score went past 180 runs. In the first T20I, both sides reached the 225-run mark. So, seeing that today’s pitch was quite conducive to batting, India would have expected a total of at least 200 runs, if not more.
However, the moment New Zealand reached a towering score of 259 runs, the game was all but over. To win this match, India needed to break the record of the highest run chase in T20I history. But how did we get here?
By the end of the 10th over in the first innings, New Zealand, after a troubling start, had managed to get back to their feet and were cruising at 109/3. A total of 200 was well within reach. While all Indian bowlers had been belted at some point in the first 10 overs, none of them was having a poor day by this point.
The second half of the innings started well for India, as Mayank Yadav took his third wicket of the day, dismissing Bevon Jacobs. But the next one over saw the beginning of the carnage.
The 12th over of the innings, the first and last bowled by Naman Dhir, went for 16 runs. Then, the 13th went for 18, and the 14th went for 20 runs.
While pace variations were still effective, the Indian bowlers started looking to escape the batters by bowling short and wide, a strategy that has not been effective throughout this series.
A respite came in the 15th over, as Arshdeep Singh escaped with just seven runs conceded, but then came Nitish Kumar Reddy. The medium pacer had looked decent tonight but was about to bowl one of the worst overs of his life.
The first saw hit Michael Bracewell’s pad as he ran for a run. India took the review and then lost it. The second ball was a full toss, hit for a boundary by Glenn Phillips. The umpire raised his arm 90 degrees to signal a no-ball. The free hit was a nicely bowled yorker, off which Phillips took a double.
The third legal ball of the over was hit for a flat six. Then the fourth was hit over the bowler’s head for another maximum. The last two balls were hit for sixes as well for a total of 32 runs in the 16th over. By this point, New Zealand had already crossed the 200-run mark and was eyeing 250.
The Men in Blue could not stop the bleeding in the death overs as well, conceding 20, 6, 13, and 14 runs and taking their score to 259/7 in their allotted 20 overs, the team’s highest ever score in T20Is, and the highest score by a team on Kiwi soil.
Check Out: 3 Reasons New Zealand Beat India In the 4th T20
1) It’s Done Bro
By the time the BlackCaps had put up a mountainous total of 259 runs, the match was all but done. As stated before, to win this game, India had to complete the highest chase in T20I history. That never looked to be on the cards from the very first over of the Indian innings.
The chase was in the dirt in the very first over of the second innings, as Jacob Duffy rattled the Indian Cricket Team’s top order with the wickets of Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan, dismissing both batters for ducks.
Openers Abhishek Sharma and skipper Shreyas Iyer kept the innings going for the next few overs. But when the required run rate was 13 at the start of the innings, losing two wickets in the first over was always going to put a team behind the eight-ball.
Abhishek would lose his wicket early too, getting out for 27 off 15 in the fifth over. Followed by Iyer, who has been struggling throughout this series, in the final over of the powerplay for 22 off 11. And just like that, India’s top four had all walked back to the dressing room within the first six overs, and the score was 61/4.
The next few overs were a blur for a team that had known that the game was done and dusted. While Nitish Kumar Reddy hit a few decent sixes, he departed in the ninth over for 21 off 10, followed by Axar Patel losing his wicket for just seven off nine.
This was the pattern for the Indian middle order. Walk in, get a few clean hits in, score some boundaries, and depart. Naman Dhit hit 17 runs in the 10th over and got out in the 12th. Tilak Varma then played with the entirety of India’s tail, stayed on the crease while struggling to score many runs, and hit a few boundaries here and there before departing in the 19th over.
As for the Indian batting order’s tail, they barely provided any resistance against a Kiwi bowling attack that was on song today. Arshdeep Singh got out for a duck, and Mayank Yadav scored three runs. Prince Yadav stayed in the middle for 17 balls and made 18 runs, but that wasn’t enough to even take India near the target, as the Indian Cricket Team managed to reach a score of 172/9 in 20 overs.
For the New Zealand bowling attack, Jacob Duffy was the star of the show. Not only did he rattle the Indian top order, but he also finished his four-over spell with superb figures of 4/23 at an economy of 5.75.
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