New Zealand vs Australia: IPL players and their performance in the first T20I

New Zealand and Australia were up against each other in the first T20 international of the five-match series at Hagley Oval in Christchurch where the hosts completely outplayed the visitors by a whopping 53 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the T20I series. This was a special game and the fans were eagerly looking forward to it as it was the first time that an international match was being held after the IPL auction, conducted by BCCI for the upcoming 2021 edition of the T20 Championship on February 18 in Chennai.

The IPL auction 2021 brought a lot of surprises and shocks as many players became millionaires while some deserving candidates were left disappointed. As many as 13 IPL players took the field in the game between New Zealand and Australia. While a few delivered astounding performances and gave a glimpse of the heroics they can perform in the upcoming IPL, many failed to live upto the expectations and flattered on the cricket pitch in the T20 International.

As far as the Black Caps are concerned, five players including the likes of Tim Seifert, skipper Kane Williamson, Mitchell Santner, Trent Boult and Kyle Jamieson will play their trade in IPL 2021. Ahead of the marquee event, Seifert (KKR), Williamson (SRH) and Santner (CSK) were retained by their franchise but they couldn’t add much value to the scoreboard of Kiwis as they registered scores of 1 off 5, 12 off 13 and 7* off 5 deliveries respectively.

Kyle Jamieson fails to perform with the ball

Santner contributed with the ball too as he picked one wicket of Jhye Richardson at economy of 8.3. Trent Boult, who had joined the Mumbai Indians squad in 2020 delivered a decent performance as he picked two wickets of Matthew Wade and Josh Philippe while bowling at an economy rate of 7.3.

The 26-year-old Kyle Jamieson had created history in IPL auction 2021 after he was picked by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for a staggering amount of INR 15 crore. Jamieson proved to be costly with the ball against Australia as he could scalp just one wicket of in-form Mitchell Marsh while leaking as many as 32 runs in his 3 overs.

Coming to the Australian squad, it had eight players in their Playing XI who will be playing in IPL 2021. One interesting fact here is that out of the eight IPL cricketers, five will represent Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021. While Josh Philippe, Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson were retained by the Bangalore outfit for 2021, they traded Daniel Sams from Delhi Capitals and shelled out a whopping amount of INR 14.25 to acquire the services of aggressive all-rounder Glenn Maxwell during auction.

SRH’s Mitchell Marsh was the highest run-getter for Australia

All the three batsman Philippe, Maxwell and Sams failed to produce results with the willow as they could manage just 2, 1 and 1 runs respectively. Sams took two wickets at economy of 10 while Maxwell went wicketless and gave 9 runs in the single over he bowled.

Kane Richardson was expensive with the ball as he bowled at an economy of 10.5 without picking any wicket. Zampa, on the other hand, was economical but remained with zero wickets under his belt. The rest of the three IPL players in the Australia’s playing XI include Jhye Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and Mitchell Marsh out of which Stoinis and Marsh were retained by DC and SRH respectively.

Marsh was the highest run-getter for his team with 45 runs under his belt off 33 players. Stoinis took one wicket while scoring just 8 runs after facing 11 deliveries. Lastly, Jhye Richardson, who was picked by Punjab Kings in the auction for a stunning INR 14 crore, performed decently with the ball as he picked two wickets at 7.8 but managed to add just 11 runs to the scoreboard with the willow.