Following the hammering suffered in the opener, India’s bowling and batting units clicked together in the second outing as it cruised to a six-wicket win over New Zealand and levelled the three-match One-Day International series here on Wednesday.
India’s seam attack went after wickets at the MCA International Stadium to first restrict the visitors to 230 before the batsmen — led by half centuries from Shikhar Dhawan and Dinesh Karthik — turned in a good performance under lights.
Returning to India’s ODI scheme of things after missing the Australia series, Dhawan fell cheaply in the first match three days ago. But on Wednesday he looked the part, was in good touch for most of his tenure in the middle and forged a solid 66-run partnership with Karthik for the third wicket. When on 46, he survived a caught down the leg-side appeal that was first upheld up umpire Chettithody Shamsuddin.
After the Delhi left-hander’s exit, Karthik and Hardik Pandya repelled the never-say-die attitude of their opponents and took control of the proceedings.
Once the contest resumed after the break, New Zealand created solid dents with fast bowler Tim Southee and medium pacer Colin de Grandhoome removing India’s big guns Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. But it could not prevent the talented Indian batting line-up from showing its depth and power.
Karthik, in particular, demonstrated fine understanding of the match situation, played some smart shots and remained unbeaten on 64 off 92 balls with four boundary shots.
When play began after Kane Williamson had called correctly at the toss, Martin Guptill gave a resounding start hitting Jasprit Bumrah for two fours on the off-side. And when Colin Munro danced down the pitch to lift Bhuvneshwar Kumar over long-off, the New Zealand camp may have been pleased as punch.
But the seamers Bhuvneshwar & Bumrah, followed by left-arm spinner Axar Patel, made sure that New Zealand’s resilience fizzled out. Bhuvneshwar struck telling blows and when Bumrah dislodged the New Zealand captain, winning a leg-before appeal from umpire Michael Gough, things began to fall in place for India. Munro’s fall put New Zealand in a difficult situation at 31 for three in the seventh over and also saw Tom Latham join Ross Taylor in the middle.
There were no heroic displays for the second time though; first Taylor swivelled to pull Pandya but only managed to nick to Mahendra Singh Dhoni and then Latham, after an 82 minute watchful effort, tried to outsmart Axar with a sweep shot to allow enough space for the ball to hit the middle stump.
Latham’s wicket was a major breakthrough that restricted the target to well under five-an-over.
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal picked up a couple of wickets as the New Zealand innings come to an end, but not before Southee hit an unbeaten 25.
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