New Zealand vs India, 1st T20I - Who Said What

India never turned up in Wellington in the first T20I against New Zealand. They were thumped by the home side by a whopping 80 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Tim Seifert was the star for New Zealand as he slammed 84 runs off just 43 balls after his team was invited to bat first. He and Colin Munro stitched the opening partnership of 86 in less than nine overs which led to them thinking of posting the magic number of 200.

Munro finally found his groove and went on to score 34 runs off 20 balls before Krunal Pandya snaffled him. However, Seifert continued to play his shots and then was joined by Kane Williamson who also played his part. When the former got out, the score was 134 in the 13th over and at that stage, it seemed that the Kiwis will post a total of around 240 with the way the runs being scored.

But the Indian bowlers got hold of the conditions somehow and then tried to pull things a bit. But all the hard work was undone by the duo of Scott Kuggeleijn and Mitchell Santner. They added quick runs in the last couple of overs to propel them to 219 runs for the loss of six wickets after 20 overs.

Miscalculated chase

India never seemed to be in the chase. The required run-rate of 11 an over kept soaring with every ball as they struggled to combat the swing and pace from the New Zealand bowlers. Rohit Sharma was the first to get out and though Shikhar Dhawan managed to hit some lusty blows, they were never enough. Vijay Shankar was surprisingly sent to bat at number three but even he struggled to up the ante.

Halfway through the chase, the Indian win was out of the question and then the duo Krunal Pandya and MS Dhoni just played to bat through the overs. A half-century partnership between them helped the visitors avert a huge defeat. Though the 80-run loss must have hurt India as they could only muster 139 before getting bowled out in the last over.

Man of the Match, Tim Seifert said:

It was a great way to start the series and the boys are really happy. It feels great to go up the order, look at the first two overs and then go from there and put pressure on the bowlers. I have been selected for a reason and it feels nice to have backed my ability.

New Zealand skipper, Kane Williamson said:

Fantastic performance all around, everyone rose and it was one of those complete performances that you search for. But it has finished now, we move on in a day’s time and we have another game. The top-order were superb and we built partnerships that helped us. Seifert, Munro were outstanding.

We know it will be different in a couple of days time and we need to learn from our bits and pieces and move on. Some really good experiences for the boys, some of the short contributions are of great importance.

Daryl bowled really well and played a good cameo down the order. We had the runs on the board, but the bowling and fielding too was of high standard. A complete performance that doesn’t happen everyday and hope we can keep the momentum through the series having set the tone.

The White Ferns game was a fantastic one, it ebbed and flowed all through. We have copied each other through the series and hopefully they can beat them in the next game and we’ll carry it forward.

India skipper, Rohit Sharma said:

It was a tough game. We were outplayed in all three departments. We didn’t start well and we knew that 200 wasn’t going to be an easy chase although the grounds are small here. But we kept losing wickets and that threw us off.

We have chased such targets in the past and that is why we played with eight batsmen, but we didn’t have small partnerships and that made it tough while chasing such a big target. But New Zealand though played well, they had partnerships that allowed them to get such a big score.

We need to go to Auckland, assess the conditions and take it forward. As a team, we have been good at chasing down targets which is why we play with eight batsmen. We believe that whatever the target is in front of us we can chase it down, but we just couldn’t do it tonight.

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