Fifties from Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell and terrific spin bowling from the duo of Mitchell Santner and Michael Bracewell put New Zealand 1-0 up in the 3-T20I series against India with a 21-run victory in Ranchi on Friday.
Suryakumar Yadav and Washington Sundar’s fightback in the chase of 177 wasn’t enough for India to come close to the target.
India had been enjoying a dominating home series with ODI and T20I series wins over Sri Lanka followed by a whitewash over New Zealand. But this loss to the Kiwis come as a surprise to many despite India missing a few star players; New Zealand too were without their senior trio of Williamson, Southee, and Boult.
Santner rallied his troop brilliantly and led them from the front with the ball as the Kiwis take a series lead.
IND vs NZ 1st T20I: Here are 3 key reasons why India lost the first T20I against New Zealand:
India seem to have read the pitch incorrectly
It can be said with authority that India perhaps read the pitch wrongly. What was described as a “good track” by Hardik Pandya, who won the toss and elected to bowl first, citing dew as a key factor in his decision, turned out to be a proper spin paradise where big turn and extra bounce was seen in the powerplay of the first innings itself.
India went with two spinners – Sundar and Kuldeep. The fact that Deepak Hooda bowled two overs, Umran Malik bowled only 1 over, and Shivam Mavi bowled 2 overs, tell you that India were left rueing their choice of playing an extra seamer instead of a spinner – it was the senior leg-spinner Chahal who was left on the bench and who would have been cursing his luck to have not gotten a chance to play on this pitch.
Arshdeep Singh’s recent bowling issues are concerning, and shocking
New Zealand were 149/6 after 19 overs. So a target of 160 was still very much gettable (India finished with 155). But Arshdeep Singh, hailed as the second-best death bowler in India after Bumrah, was horrible in the last over.
The first three deliveries he bowled were smoked for three sixes by Mitchell, and the first of which was a no-ball, compounding the issue for Arshdeep and India. Arshdeep gave away 27 runs in the last over, which, sort of, proved to be decisive. At the start too, Arshdeep had leaked 22 runs in his first two overs, which included two wides.
And not too long ago, Arshdeep had had another forgettable night, when against Sri Lanka he conceded 37 runs in only 2 overs, which included a spate of no balls.
Indian top order failed to adjust to the pitch
In the batting department too, the Indian batters failed to read the pitch, resulting in false shots. Ishan Kishan was on the backfoot to a full delivery from Bracewell, which took his off-stump. Shubman Gill was too early into his shot and lobbed a catch off Santner, while Tripathi failed to get off the mark, edging a seaming-away delivery from Duffy.
Suryakumar and then later Washington Sundar showed that runs could be scored on this surface, but the top-order just failed to understand the surface. It wasn’t that there was uneven bounce, then it would have been really difficult to score.
