Sharjah: Daryl Mitchell (49 off 35 balls) and Kane Williamson (33 not out off 31 balls) led New Zealand to an emphatic eight-wicket win over India in an important Group 2 match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Dubai International Stadium here on Sunday.
After restricting India to paltry 110/7 in 20 overs, New Zealand chased down the target easily with 33 balls to spare.
Martin Guptill began by hitting Varun Chakravarthy for back-to-back boundaries in the third over. Guptill took a boundary off Jasprit Bumrah in the next over. But on the next ball, Guptill miscued a loft to mid-on, Shardul Thakur grabbed it on the second attempt. Daryl Mitchell welcomed Ravindra Jadeja in the final over of Power-play with a six-over long-on followed by back-to-back fours.
Post Powerplay, Mitchell continued this good show, slamming Mohammed Shami for a six-over deep square leg. He then took 14 runs off Thakur in the tenth over, smoking a six over cow corner followed by back-to-back fours. Mitchell stitched a partnership of 72 off 54 balls with Kane Williamson to keep New Zealand steady in the chase.
Mitchell fell a run short of his maiden T20I half-century in the 13th over, holing out to long-on off Bumrah. Williamson hung around to hit two fours off Hardik Pandya in the 14th over before scoring the winning single to complete their first win of the ongoing tournament.
Kane Williamson, New Zealand captain, said, ‘There’s always planning going into game, but this was a great performance against a side that puts up a fight. The surface wasn’t easy to find rhythm on, and the way the openers came out really set things up for the chase. It’s just about adapting to the conditions as well as we could. The way the spinners kept applying pressure was commendable and it was a complete performance. We play against strong teams all the time, and there are match-winners in every side, and we commit to our brand of cricket and today was a good example of that. Ish is an outstanding white-ball bowler, and he’s very experienced in playing T20 cricket, having played in different leagues all over the world, and we’re looking forward to the rest of the games in the league stages’.
Virat Kohli, India captain, said, ‘ To be brutal upfront, I don’t think we were brave enough with bat/ball. We obviously didn’t have much to play with the ball. We were just not brave enough in our body language when we entered the field and NZ had better intensity, body language. Every time we took a chance, we lost a wicket. It’s most often a result of hesitation of whether you should go for a shot or not. When you play for India, there are loads of expectations. We are watched, people come to the stadium and everyone who plays for India needs to embrace that and cope with it. We haven’t done that in these two games, and that’s why we haven’t won. We have to be optimistic and positive and take calculated risks. We have to disconnect from the pressure and continue with our process, and play a positive brand of cricket. There’s a lot of cricket to play in the tournament’
Ish Sodhi, player of the match, said, ‘ I am usually big on pre-match prep, with this bubble life we haven’t been able to see the ground until the day we come to the ground. The wicket here was one we had to adapt to pretty quickly. It was very different to what we played in Sharjah. The boundary sizes were very different. A big part of our game is using the spin bowlers in the middle. It was set up by the powerplay bowlers. Tim Southee getting that wicket late in the powerplay was massive for us and allowed us to do our job through the middle. We had a tough loss against Pakistan, it was hard not to think this is a really big game. Coming into the game we wanted to play as good a game we possibly could. To play the way we did tonight is one to definitely celebrate.’
