India 280/8 (50 ov)
New Zealand 284/4 (49/50 ov)
New Zealand won by 6 wickets (with 6 balls remaining)
Virat Kohli, in his 200th ODI, sought to play the perfect innings on a slow pitch and in sapping heat. He got lucky when he took the calculated risk, he was also dropped on 29, but that was fortune earned and he went on to score his 31st hundred.
New Zealand took more risks collectively, opened with almost a pinch hitter, but enjoyed less luck than Kohli. Yet, Kohli was let down by his team-mates, 37 being the next best score to his 121, whereas all New Zealand batsmen contributed - Ross Taylor and Tom Latham added 200 - as they chased down 281, only their third win when batting second against India in India.
It was a fascinating contrast of batting approaches. Kohli trusted his game and his fitness to score at around 80 runs per 100 balls without looking to even hit a boundary. He hit only five boundaries in his first 75 runs, two of them without meaning to. New Zealand, on the other hand, came out attacking, with Colin Munro taking a risk every over.
If it was a ploy to put the Indian spinners under pressure even before they were introduced, it didn't work as they managed to still lose wickets. Latham and Taylor, though, swept the spinners to distraction, managed the seamers with ease, and kept finding the boundary whenever the asking rate threatened to become uncomfortable.
That the run rate was not highly demanding was down largely to Trent Boult, who removed the India openers in his first spell, and then took the wickets of MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya as he conceded just 35 in his 10 overs. He might have dropped an apparent sitter from Kohli, but Mitchell Santner, perhaps the only relatively permanent specialist fingerspinner in limited-overs cricket today, did his bit with the ball, taking Kedar Jadhav's wicket and conceding just 41 runs in his allotment of 10 overs.
Kohli had to find a way around these two and slow conditions to build the India innings single-handedly. He stayed at the wicket for 46 overs in Mumbai's October heat of over 30 degrees centigrade and humidity over 70%, but not once did he miss a quick single or fail to put pressure on the deep fielders with the threat of a second run. He came in to bat when the reunited India openers, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, seemed like they had eyes set on the return of the high-scoring ODI in India. Both of them perished to the swing of Boult, and with a shaky idle order to follow, Kohli knew he had to carry the innings.
Kohli did find support from a new middle-order applicant, Dinesh Karthik, who was playing his first ODI in India since 2010, but the support didn't last. Around the 30th over, when wickets come with bigger impact than the earlier ones, Kane Williamson went back to his strike bowlers. In his first over back, Tim Southee sent back Karthik off a mis-hit hook, a shot that had earlier produced three sixes for India.
Now came the spell of play where teams hope for wickets to shut the opposition out. To that end, New Zealand kept going to their strike bowlers. MS Dhoni and Kohli managed to deny New Zealand those wickets, but Dhoni's innings of 42 balls came at a strike rate of under 60. No side could say it owned this period of play, but in the end it proved to be the difference between chasing 281 and 300.
Boult came back to make sure India didn't run away at the end even though Kohli accelerated gradually and Bhuvneshwar Kumar provided a finishing kick with 26 off 15. Eighty-three in those last 10 overs gave India a more than competitive total given the form of their bowlers and the nature of the pitch. However, after a pretty formulaic effort from Australia, India were now against an opposition that was intent on upsetting their rhythm.
Latham, who scored runs in each of his innings in the ODI series in India last year, was asked to step down into the middle order. Munro was asked to distract India's new-ball bowlers. He succeeded for a bit before Jasprit Bumrah's slower one accounted for him. Kuldeep Yadav was in the game right away, getting Williamson with a wrong'un that one of the best batsmen in the world failed to pick. Pandya bounced Martin Guptill out to make it 80 for 3, leaving India potentially one blow away from sealing the defense.
Latham and Taylor, though, had other ideas. Latham, especially, played the cleaner, more controlled innings. He swept and reverse-swept 20 of the 51 balls of spin he faced, taking 35 of his 58 runs of spin through those two shots. Taylor had to curb his leg-side play a little although he stayed partial to his other favourite, the cut. Over by over, shot by shot, the partnership grew. The spinners went past the bat but failed to create a wicket.
There came two opportunities in the field. In the 31st over, Dhoni could have run Taylor out with a direct hit at the bowler's end. Dhoni missed, but Chahal, the bowler, was not at the wicket to collect the throw. In the 36th over, Kohli got a fortunate bounce at cover and Taylor gave up trying to make it. Kohli missed the stumps again. Taylor was 40 and 56 at those instances.
Desperate, India went back to seam bowlers, holding back four overs of spin, hoping they could pounce on the inexperienced batsmen to follow. For that, though, they needed a breakthrough. It wasn't forthcoming as Latham and Taylor willed each other on, punishing every error from India. By the time, the last dice was rolled with the reintroduction of spin, New Zealand needed just 63 from nine overs.
Latham now was in the mood to have some fun, reverse-sweeping both the spinners. The batsmen had to work hard in the humidity; just like Dhoni and Kohli, they had to take frequent breaks. For India, the break came too late, with scores level. Taylor could have manipulated the scoring in the end and followed his partner Latham into a century, but he chose not to disrespect the opposition and took every run and leg-bye on offer. He was caught on 95 with scores level, and you couldn't sense an ounce of disappointment at missing a century.
2nd ODI
New Zealand 230/9 (50 ov)
India 232/4 (46/50 ov)
India won by 6 wickets (with 24 balls remaining)
New Zealand won the first ODI at the Wankhede Stadium courtesy their preparedness against India's spinners, and the success of a key tactical move - swapping the batting positions of Colin Munro and Tom Latham. Three days later, following a trip down the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, India turned the tables with their own counter-tactics, on a pitch with just enough grass on it to allow their fast bowlers to bowl a traditional good length.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar finished with three wickets and Jasprit Bumrah with two, the pair conceding only 83 in their 20 overs as New Zealand set India a target of 231 to level the series. The chase proved straightforward, with Shikhar Dhawan and Dinesh Karthik scoring half-centuries to lead India home with four overs remaining.
New Zealand's fast bowlers didn't begin half as well as their Indian counterparts, with Trent Boult and Tim Southee routinely pitching short in their new-ball spells. India hit seven fours in the first seven overs, and five of them came off the back foot, via pulls and punches and slashes over the slips. Rohit Sharma fell early, flicking Boult in the air, but the easy flow of boundaries meant New Zealand never put any pressure on the second-wicket pair of Dhawan and Virat Kohli, who added 57 off 56 balls.
Kohli fell in the 14th over, driving away from his body at one that wasn't full enough from Colin de Grandhomme, and Karthik walked in at No. 4, joining the endless carousel of batsmen to audition for the role in recent months. He began his innings with a boundary, guiding de Grandhomme between backward point and short third man, and ended the match with another - a sweetly timed on-the-up drive through the covers - but endured a bit of a struggle in between, never entirely fluent but always serving the interests of the chase.
New Zealand never managed two wickets in quick succession, with Karthik a constant thorn at one end: he added 66 with Dhawan for the third wicket, 59 with Hardik Pandya for the fourth, and an unbroken 28 with MS Dhoni for the fifth. The pitch wasn't a belter, but it was still batting-friendly, and New Zealand hadn't set a big enough target to force India into taking any real risks.
For that India will thank their bowlers, particularly Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah. Bowling a mix of slower balls and bouncers, India's new-ball pair exposed Munro's leaden-footed technique, and he plodded his way to 10 off 16 balls before Bhuvneshwar slipped a knuckleball through his defences. Before that, seam movement from a good length took out Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson, both stuck on the crease, the former nicking an away-seamer, the latter lbw to an inducker, and New Zealand were 27 for 3.
It was here that Latham came to the crease. During his unbeaten hundred in Mumbai, the sweep had been his most productive stroke, fetching him 26 runs off 16 balls and putting India's pair of wristspinners off their lengths. India had responded by leaving out one of their wristspinners and bringing in the left-arm orthodox of Axar Patel - a flat, stump-to-stump, and therefore harder-to-sweep bowler. But before bringing Axar on, and as soon as the first Powerplay ended, India brought on Kedar Jadhav, who hadn't bowled at all in Mumbai.
With his round-the-wicket angle and low-arm release, Jadhav either angled the ball into Latham's stumps or occasionally fired one wide of off stump, neither line conducive to the sweep, particularly given Jadhav's lack of bounce. He bowled seven straight overs in his first spell, and only conceded 24, and in that time Latham played him with a studiously straight bat, only sweeping twice while scoring 11 off 23 balls.
Jadhav's spell kept Latham in check, and in the time he was at the crease - in the company of Ross Taylor and then Henry Nicholls - New Zealand only managed 91 runs in 22.1 overs. The sweep appeared more frequently once Jadhav went out of the attack, but eventually the shot cost Latham his wicket, for 38 off 62 balls, as he failed to cover for Axar Patel's switch to left-arm around.
The arrival of de Grandhomme perked up New Zealand's scoring, the allrounder playing a number of eye-catching flicks and on-drives while adding 47 for the sixth wicket at 5.42 per over with the more prosaic Nicholls. But just when the partnership was looking threatening, Bhuvneshwar broke it in the 38th over, when he returned for a two-over second spell. Again he hit that perfect length to prompt Nicholls to drive without getting a full stride forward, and again he found just enough movement to beat the inside edge and peg back leg stump.
Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah only conceded 12 in the last four overs of the second Powerplay, and perhaps this built extra pressure on de Grandhomme, who fell while trying to push the pace in the last over of spin, the 44th. Yuzvendra Chahal tossed one up wide of off stump, and de Grandhomme, reaching out for the big one, sliced a catch to short third man. Chahal's next ball was a slider, which caught Adam Milne plumb in front.
New Zealand were 188 for 8 at this point. Mitchell Santner and Tim Southee ensured they would end up with a fighting total, courtesy a ninth-wicket stand of 32, but 230 was still decidedly below par.
3rd ODI
India 337/6 (50 ov)
New Zealand 331/7 (50 ov)
India won by 6 runs
Elation, after a seventh straight bilateral ODI series win, for India. Heartbreak for a New Zealand side that has been among the best prepared and most tenacious limited-overs teams to visit the country in recent years. Why is this only a three-match series?
New Zealand came to Kanpur with a poor record in ODI deciders in India. In each of their three previous attempts, their batting had let them down: they fell short of 200 in both 1995 and 1999 and, on this day last year, imploded to 79 all out.
It's not the proudest record, and on Sunday New Zealand were set quite a task to break their decider duck in India. With Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli scoring hundreds and becoming the first ODI pair to combine in four double-century stands, India set them 338 to win. They had only completed two bigger successful chases.
That set the stage for the two teams to trade punch and counter-punch in a riveting microcosm of the entire series.
Colin Munro set things rolling by stepping out and carting the third ball of the innings over the midwicket boundary. The next three balls disappeared for fours, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar - steady, dependable Bhuvneshwar Kumar - was dazed and bemused. Trying to somehow cramp Munro for room with round-the-wicket bouncers, he sent down three wides in his third over, and by the end of his first spell was nursing figures of 0 for 51 in five.
But at the other end, Jasprit Bumrah kept things sane, extracting whatever little help a flat Green Park pitch could give him by hitting it hard with maximum backspin or, in the case of his slower offcutter, sidespin. His first spell read 4-0-12-1, Martin Guptill an excellent choice for 50th ODI wicket.
Tom Latham prepares to reverse sweep off the back of the bat Associated Press
New Zealand remained on track, with Munro and Kane Williamson adding 109 for the second wicket and moving the score to 153 for 1 in the 25th over. The counter-punch, this time, came from Yuzvendra Chahal, the only other bowler apart from Bumrah to get something out of the surface. He did this by means of hard-spun legbreaks - one drifted away from Munro and broke back in to bowl him through the gate, the other, dangled slower and wider, forced Williamson to miscue a slog-sweep. New Zealand, suddenly, were 168 for 3.
Enter Tom Latham, New Zealand's most improved and most impressive batsman on this tour. In Mumbai he had swept his way to a match-winning hundred; his innings here was perhaps even better, showcasing not just deftness against spin but also pristine timing against the fast bowlers, particularly square on the off side and off his legs. He dominated a 79-run stand with Ross Taylor, and then added 59, off just 40 balls, with the scrappy and highly effective Henry Nicholls.
When Bhuvneshwar, producing the perfect yorker on a day when little else went right for him, ended that stand, New Zealand needed 32 off 19 to win. Not the worst time for your biggest hitter to walk in.
Except it wasn't to be Colin de Grandhomme's day; his indecision played a part in Latham being run out for 65 off 52, and he didn't seem to have his hitting gloves on either. With Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah landing a dew-sodden ball there or thereabouts in the closing overs, the target slipped away from New Zealand's reach. It came down to 15 off the last over, but they were never going to get it against Bumrah in this sort of form.
New Zealand could have been chasing significantly more than 338 had their bowlers not pulled India back through the last 10 overs, in which they took five wickets while conceding only 85.
Three of those were the result of catches at long-off - a not insignificant detail, for it encapsulated the value of the fifth boundary fielder in the third Powerplay. In the last five overs of the second Powerplay, when mid-off was usually inside the circle, Rohit and Kohli had hit six fours and a six in the arc between deep extra-cover and long-off. India scored 56 in that five-over period, and Kohli and Rohit looked unstoppable.
In his 28th match, Jasprit Bumrah became the second fastest Indian to 50 wickets BCCI
But the relaxation of field restrictions gave New Zealand a bit more control. Rohit and Hardik Pandya fell to Mitchell Santner's changes of pace and trajectory while going for big hits, while a Tim Southee slower ball undid Kohli's attempt at clearing long-off. Between the end of the 40th over and Kohli's dismissal, India had only managed three boundaries. MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav manufactured three fours and a six thereafter, and India picked up 35 off the last 20 legal balls of their innings. Those runs would prove quite handy.
Rohit and Kohli came together in the seventh over of India's innings, when Shikhar Dhawan spooned Southee to mid-off, and immediately gave the sense of settling themselves for a long stay.
Kohli looked in rare form right from the time he walked in, flicking an off-stump ball to the right of midwicket to get off the mark and then punching Southee through the gap between cover point and extra-cover, but despite this he slipped into a sidekick role, happy to get off strike and watch Rohit do his thing. He did, however, become the fastest player to 9000 runs in one-day cricket.
Rohit's innings contained all the classic Rohit ingredients - the back-foot punches, the front-foot pulls in front of square, the drives down the ground - and also a determination to rectify the mistakes of his previous two innings. He had been out playing across the line in the first two ODIs, and didn't repeat that mistake here. In the eighth over, for instance, he got a full, middle-and-leg ball from Trent Boult, similar to the one he flicked in the air in Pune, only this time he showed the full face of the bat and picked up four to the left of mid-on.
Once he got his eye in, boundaries flowed to all parts. The fifty came up off 52 balls, the hundred off 106, and with Kohli following in his slipstream a total in the 350-370 range looked possible. India didn't get that far, but they eventually got far enough. Just about.
1st T20I
India 202/3 (20 ov)
New Zealand 149/8 (20 ov)
India won by 53 runs
In American football, a fumble - when a player doesn't catch or control the ball cleanly - results in loss of possession and significant momentum. A team on the charge then has to guard the opponent's offense. Cricket's equivalent is a drop catch. New Zealand spilled three catches of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Each of them then went on the offense to carry India to 202, a total they defended by 53 runs to register their first T20I win against New Zealand. The loss took away the No. 1 ranking from Kane Williamson and his men with Pakistan rising to occupy the top spot.
Dhawan was dropped by Mitchell Santner at cover point for 8 in the second over, and Rohit by Tim Southee at long-off on 16. Both batsmen found their hitting rhythm right after their reprieves, and finished with 80 apiece. Together they added 158, the highest opening partnership for India in T20Is.
Dhawan and Rohit not only have the left and right-hand combination in their favour, but also the advantage of preferring different lengths. When New Zealand's seamers dropped short, Dhawan slashed and slapped merrily on either side of the wicket. New Zealand's natural instinct was therefore to bowl fuller, which Rohit was waiting for with his lofted drives. It was, therefore, unsurprising that Rohit hit six fours and four sixes, and Dhawan 10 fours and two sixes.
New Zealand would have had much more than 203 to chase if not for Ish Sodhi. He used his variations, the googly and the flipper, in addition to a ripping legbreak to keep with the recent trend of wristspin dominating the world. Bowling the 17th over, he fired a googly wide outside off after seeing Dhawan advancing, and had him caught behind. Two balls later, he had Hardik Pandya caught behind with a turning legbreak.
New Zealand then had to contend with a wet ball and Kohli in sensational form, hitting through the line to almost any length. Southee and Trent Boult hit back of a length, but Kohli met the ball early, and let his immense bottom-hand power take the ball over midwicket. His 11-ball 26 was the kind of cameo that substantially increases margins in T20s but it could have come to an end on 8 had Martin Guptill taken the catch Kohli offered at deep midwicket.
With Rohit on 80, he was given out caught behind to a wide yorker, but the third umpire was asked to check if the catch was clean. Bizarrely, Anil Chaudhary reversed the on-field call and soft signal of out, adjudicating that "bat hit the ground" without sufficient evidence. New Zealand reviewed the decision, and had it overturned. Confused expressions abounded all around the Feroz Shah Kotla.
New Zealand's confusion turned to helplessness in their reply. In the second over, Yuzvendra Chahal had a wide long-off because the ball spinning away tends to go squarer off the outside half of the bat. Guptill, though, managed to hit Chahal straight back over his head. Hardik Pandya ran around to his right, but as he realised he wasn't going to get there, he put in a full-length dive, both feet off the air, and plucked a two-handed stunner that is every wide receiver's dream in American football.
In the fourth over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar executed a terrific yorker, quick and straight, and Munro's inside edge could only find middle stump. When Williamson and Tom Latham decided to rebuild, instead of counter-attacking, the game was done. They fell well behind the asking rate against a potent attack.
Williamson was caught behind off an attempted cut for 28. Tom Bruce and Colin de Grandhomme were both caught in the deep midwicket region off Axar Patel. Latham top-scored with 39, but it was a laboured effort before he was stumped off Chahal.
Ashish Nehra's farewell game wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either. He had two tough catches dropped off his bowling, by Pandya running back from cover in the third over, and by Kohli, who couldn't hold on to a sharp one-handed overhead catch at mid-off. He finished with 0 for 29, and a lap of honour around his home ground to culminate an 18-year career. Shreyas Iyer did not get to bat on his international debut.
2nd T20I
New Zealand 196/2 (20 ov)
Colin Munro scorched his way to a 54-ball hundred - his second in T20Is this year - to break India and force the series into a decider in Thiruvananthapuram. He made excellent use of four chances to launch New Zealand to 196 for 2 after they had opted to bat and though Virat Kohli made a vintage 65 in response, the rapidly rising scoreboard pressure was just too much to overcome.
India were forced into a situation where they had to score more than two runs a ball in the last 10 overs. Even the best finishers struggle to maintain such a high pace for such a long time. Hardik Pandya, new to the role, fell for 1 and even an old hand like MS Dhoni never got going. At a stage when the asking rate was nudging 15, he was playing a run-a-ball innings, unable to hit Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi off their plan of attacking his pads.
A better fielding effort could have helped the hosts as well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar dropped a very tough chance at deep midwicket - the kind where a player has to decide whether to take the catch or save a six. Munro was on 36 then. He gave a far simpler opportunity to Shreyas Iyer at long-on but the ball was parried the ball over the rope for six. A wayward throw from Rohit Sharma came to Munro's rescue in the 12th over. And finally, on 79, he was dropped by Chahal running back from cover.
Given so many lives, Munro capitalised. His batting is founded on a simple strategy: stay leg side of the ball and belt it and an easy-paced hit-through-the-line Rajkot pitch was right up his alley. He crunched seven sixes - all in the arc between deep midwicket and long-on. The carnage began when he welcomed Mohammed Siraj into international cricket with a punched four to the backward point boundary. Siraj then switched to slower offcutters, but Munro waited for those and carted a brace of sixes. By then New Zealand had passed their first fifty opening stand in the limited-overs tour of India.
At the other end, Martin Guptill played a Jekyll-and-Hyde innings. He laboured to 14 off 22 balls against pace and hit 31 off 19 balls against spin. Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar had shackled him with seam movement and bounce, but he broke free against Chahal, who oddly bowled into the batsman's hitting arc. Guptill simply planted his front foot down and took the legspinner for three successive boundaries in his first over, including a signature loft that sailed into the sightscreen. Chahal, however, recovered to best Guptill for 45 with a front-of-the-hand flipper. Three overs later, Siraj had Kane Williamson holing out to deep square leg for 12.
But even with six bowlers, India couldn't stop Munro. Axar Patel and Pandya were also lined up and sent over the boundary. Munro reached his first fifty off just 26 balls - after Iyer's drop - and brought up his second off 28 balls. This meant he joined Brendon McCullum - his former captain and someone he still seeks out for advice - in elite company. They, along with Chris Gayle and Evin Lewis, are the only batsmen with two T20I tons.
Munro had a job to do with the ball too. He introduced the world to his knuckle ball and snaffled a skier of a return catch to cut short Iyer's innings at 23. The Mumbai batsman had added 54 for the third wicket with Kohli to give India hope after Trent Boult's double-strike in his first over. The left-arm quick first burst through the gate of Shikhar Dhawan with a nip-backer and four balls later, he coaxed an outside edge from Rohit with extra bounce. When Pandya was fooled by a googly from Ish Sodhi for 1, India were reduced to 67 for 4 in the 10th over.
The early wickets, however, did not bother Kohli. He forayed down the track and drilled Boult over his head. Then he targetted Santner and hit him for three boundaries in five balls, including a shovelled six over long-on. However, as the ball got older, it began to grip in the pitch and that brought Sodhi into the game big time. A peach of a legbreak in the 13th over very nearly had Dhoni stumped for 8.Spin continued being New Zealand's trump card through the middle overs as they tied down one end which kept piling the pressure on Kohli at the other.
An equation of 85 off 30 balls needed both batsmen to fire but try as Dhoni might, he couldn't find his range. He came down the track but rarely got the leverage he was looking for. He nudged the ball into the deep to steal twos but the fielders were wise to that trick. He even swung right across the line but nothing worked. He was 28 off 28 at the end of the 18th over.
To compensate for that, Kohli charged out to Santner and was caught behind. Boult then took over, picked up a couple more wickets and wrapped the game up with a career-best 4 for 34. He had recorded his worst ODI and T20I outings over the past week but found a way to raise his game when New Zealand needed it most.
3rd T20I
India 67/5 (8/8 overs)
New Zealand 61/6 (8/8 overs)
India win by 6 runs
Just over a week ago, Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah were India's bowling heroes in a gripping, high-scoring ODI series decider in Kanpur. On Tuesday they combined to deny New Zealand once again, this time in an eight-overs-a-side dogfight on a damp, grippy surface in a rain-shortened maiden international game at the Greenfield Stadium.
Sent in to bat, India struggled to force the pace against square turn from Mitchell Santner and canny changes of pace from Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Virat Kohli got off to a bright start, clattering Ish Sodhi for four and six off his first two balls, but holed out on 13, and the rest of the batsmen couldn't quite find their timing on a difficult surface.
If the conditions and the bowling weren't hard enough to contend with, they also ran into Santner who had a storming day in the field. He took two good catches to send back the openers off successive balls, and later pulled off a spectacular assist to remove top-scorer Manish Pandey, sprinting from long-on, throwing himself to his right, plucking the ball out of mid-air and flicking it to Colin de Grandhomme coming the other way from deep midwicket.
All this left New Zealand 68 to win their first proper series, in any format, in India, and Chahal and Bumrah led the defence with combined figures of 4-0-17-2. New Zealand scored 44 off their other four overs, but it wasn't quite enough.
Colin Munro began the chase ominously, stepping out to the first ball he faced and launching Bhuvneshwar Kumar over the midwicket boundary. Bhuvneshwar pulled things back through the rest of the over with a succession of knuckle balls, the last of them sneaking past Martin Guptill's slog and rattling his off stump, and New Zealand were 8 for 1.
Munro's power made him a key wicket for India, and Bumrah prised him out with three excellent balls - all of them hitting the deck just short of a good length and forcing the left-hander to hit against the right-arm-over angle. Two dots forced Munro to charge out, Bumrah saw him coming and shortened his length, and his cross-bat heave skewed over mid-on, from where Rohit Sharma sprinted to complete a tumbling stunner. Only three came off that over.
Chahal, relishing the grip and turn on offer, kept the ball wide of off stump to both right- and left-hander, and didn't concede a single boundary in his two overs. Every second ball he bowled was a dot, and this was especially commendable given the pressure he bowled in.
Colin de Grandhomme had just launched Kuldeep Yadav for a flat six over long-on - perhaps the cleanest hit of the night - when Chahal came on to bowl the sixth over with New Zealand needing 32 off the last three. He beat the bat with his first two balls to de Grandhomme, both on a length too short to hit down the ground but not short enough to hit square, both pitching outside off and making him reach, one a slider and one a ripping legbreak.
India used Bumrah in the penultimate over, and even though it wasn't his best over - it included a wide, a succession of byes, and a full-toss flicked for four by Tom Bruce - it still only cost 10 runs, and left New Zealand 19 to get off the last six balls.
Kohli went for Hardik Pandya rather than Kuldeep, and the allrounder closed it out, though not without a couple of alarms. De Grandhomme stung Pandya's left hand with a powerful straight hit, and next ball clubbed a slower one over the square leg boundary to bring the equation down to 14 off three. A wide next ball made it 13 off three, but Pandya pulled himself together and found the lengths to deny de Grandhomme and Santner any more big hits.
India 202/3 (20 ov)
New Zealand 149/8 (20 ov)
India won by 53 runs
In American football, a fumble - when a player doesn't catch or control the ball cleanly - results in loss of possession and significant momentum. A team on the charge then has to guard the opponent's offense. Cricket's equivalent is a drop catch. New Zealand spilled three catches of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Each of them then went on the offense to carry India to 202, a total they defended by 53 runs to register their first T20I win against New Zealand. The loss took away the No. 1 ranking from Kane Williamson and his men with Pakistan rising to occupy the top spot.
Dhawan was dropped by Mitchell Santner at cover point for 8 in the second over, and Rohit by Tim Southee at long-off on 16. Both batsmen found their hitting rhythm right after their reprieves, and finished with 80 apiece. Together they added 158, the highest opening partnership for India in T20Is.
Dhawan and Rohit not only have the left and right-hand combination in their favour, but also the advantage of preferring different lengths. When New Zealand's seamers dropped short, Dhawan slashed and slapped merrily on either side of the wicket. New Zealand's natural instinct was therefore to bowl fuller, which Rohit was waiting for with his lofted drives. It was, therefore, unsurprising that Rohit hit six fours and four sixes, and Dhawan 10 fours and two sixes.
New Zealand would have had much more than 203 to chase if not for Ish Sodhi. He used his variations, the googly and the flipper, in addition to a ripping legbreak to keep with the recent trend of wristspin dominating the world. Bowling the 17th over, he fired a googly wide outside off after seeing Dhawan advancing, and had him caught behind. Two balls later, he had Hardik Pandya caught behind with a turning legbreak.
New Zealand then had to contend with a wet ball and Kohli in sensational form, hitting through the line to almost any length. Southee and Trent Boult hit back of a length, but Kohli met the ball early, and let his immense bottom-hand power take the ball over midwicket. His 11-ball 26 was the kind of cameo that substantially increases margins in T20s but it could have come to an end on 8 had Martin Guptill taken the catch Kohli offered at deep midwicket.
With Rohit on 80, he was given out caught behind to a wide yorker, but the third umpire was asked to check if the catch was clean. Bizarrely, Anil Chaudhary reversed the on-field call and soft signal of out, adjudicating that "bat hit the ground" without sufficient evidence. New Zealand reviewed the decision, and had it overturned. Confused expressions abounded all around the Feroz Shah Kotla.
New Zealand's confusion turned to helplessness in their reply. In the second over, Yuzvendra Chahal had a wide long-off because the ball spinning away tends to go squarer off the outside half of the bat. Guptill, though, managed to hit Chahal straight back over his head. Hardik Pandya ran around to his right, but as he realised he wasn't going to get there, he put in a full-length dive, both feet off the air, and plucked a two-handed stunner that is every wide receiver's dream in American football.
In the fourth over, Bhuvneshwar Kumar executed a terrific yorker, quick and straight, and Munro's inside edge could only find middle stump. When Williamson and Tom Latham decided to rebuild, instead of counter-attacking, the game was done. They fell well behind the asking rate against a potent attack.
Williamson was caught behind off an attempted cut for 28. Tom Bruce and Colin de Grandhomme were both caught in the deep midwicket region off Axar Patel. Latham top-scored with 39, but it was a laboured effort before he was stumped off Chahal.
Ashish Nehra's farewell game wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either. He had two tough catches dropped off his bowling, by Pandya running back from cover in the third over, and by Kohli, who couldn't hold on to a sharp one-handed overhead catch at mid-off. He finished with 0 for 29, and a lap of honour around his home ground to culminate an 18-year career. Shreyas Iyer did not get to bat on his international debut.
2nd T20I
New Zealand 196/2 (20 ov)
India 156/7 (20 ov)
New Zealand won by 40 runs
Colin Munro scorched his way to a 54-ball hundred - his second in T20Is this year - to break India and force the series into a decider in Thiruvananthapuram. He made excellent use of four chances to launch New Zealand to 196 for 2 after they had opted to bat and though Virat Kohli made a vintage 65 in response, the rapidly rising scoreboard pressure was just too much to overcome.
India were forced into a situation where they had to score more than two runs a ball in the last 10 overs. Even the best finishers struggle to maintain such a high pace for such a long time. Hardik Pandya, new to the role, fell for 1 and even an old hand like MS Dhoni never got going. At a stage when the asking rate was nudging 15, he was playing a run-a-ball innings, unable to hit Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi off their plan of attacking his pads.
A better fielding effort could have helped the hosts as well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar dropped a very tough chance at deep midwicket - the kind where a player has to decide whether to take the catch or save a six. Munro was on 36 then. He gave a far simpler opportunity to Shreyas Iyer at long-on but the ball was parried the ball over the rope for six. A wayward throw from Rohit Sharma came to Munro's rescue in the 12th over. And finally, on 79, he was dropped by Chahal running back from cover.
Given so many lives, Munro capitalised. His batting is founded on a simple strategy: stay leg side of the ball and belt it and an easy-paced hit-through-the-line Rajkot pitch was right up his alley. He crunched seven sixes - all in the arc between deep midwicket and long-on. The carnage began when he welcomed Mohammed Siraj into international cricket with a punched four to the backward point boundary. Siraj then switched to slower offcutters, but Munro waited for those and carted a brace of sixes. By then New Zealand had passed their first fifty opening stand in the limited-overs tour of India.
At the other end, Martin Guptill played a Jekyll-and-Hyde innings. He laboured to 14 off 22 balls against pace and hit 31 off 19 balls against spin. Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar had shackled him with seam movement and bounce, but he broke free against Chahal, who oddly bowled into the batsman's hitting arc. Guptill simply planted his front foot down and took the legspinner for three successive boundaries in his first over, including a signature loft that sailed into the sightscreen. Chahal, however, recovered to best Guptill for 45 with a front-of-the-hand flipper. Three overs later, Siraj had Kane Williamson holing out to deep square leg for 12.
But even with six bowlers, India couldn't stop Munro. Axar Patel and Pandya were also lined up and sent over the boundary. Munro reached his first fifty off just 26 balls - after Iyer's drop - and brought up his second off 28 balls. This meant he joined Brendon McCullum - his former captain and someone he still seeks out for advice - in elite company. They, along with Chris Gayle and Evin Lewis, are the only batsmen with two T20I tons.
Munro had a job to do with the ball too. He introduced the world to his knuckle ball and snaffled a skier of a return catch to cut short Iyer's innings at 23. The Mumbai batsman had added 54 for the third wicket with Kohli to give India hope after Trent Boult's double-strike in his first over. The left-arm quick first burst through the gate of Shikhar Dhawan with a nip-backer and four balls later, he coaxed an outside edge from Rohit with extra bounce. When Pandya was fooled by a googly from Ish Sodhi for 1, India were reduced to 67 for 4 in the 10th over.
The early wickets, however, did not bother Kohli. He forayed down the track and drilled Boult over his head. Then he targetted Santner and hit him for three boundaries in five balls, including a shovelled six over long-on. However, as the ball got older, it began to grip in the pitch and that brought Sodhi into the game big time. A peach of a legbreak in the 13th over very nearly had Dhoni stumped for 8.Spin continued being New Zealand's trump card through the middle overs as they tied down one end which kept piling the pressure on Kohli at the other.
An equation of 85 off 30 balls needed both batsmen to fire but try as Dhoni might, he couldn't find his range. He came down the track but rarely got the leverage he was looking for. He nudged the ball into the deep to steal twos but the fielders were wise to that trick. He even swung right across the line but nothing worked. He was 28 off 28 at the end of the 18th over.
To compensate for that, Kohli charged out to Santner and was caught behind. Boult then took over, picked up a couple more wickets and wrapped the game up with a career-best 4 for 34. He had recorded his worst ODI and T20I outings over the past week but found a way to raise his game when New Zealand needed it most.
3rd T20I
India 67/5 (8/8 overs)
New Zealand 61/6 (8/8 overs)
India win by 6 runs
Just over a week ago, Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah were India's bowling heroes in a gripping, high-scoring ODI series decider in Kanpur. On Tuesday they combined to deny New Zealand once again, this time in an eight-overs-a-side dogfight on a damp, grippy surface in a rain-shortened maiden international game at the Greenfield Stadium.
Sent in to bat, India struggled to force the pace against square turn from Mitchell Santner and canny changes of pace from Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Virat Kohli got off to a bright start, clattering Ish Sodhi for four and six off his first two balls, but holed out on 13, and the rest of the batsmen couldn't quite find their timing on a difficult surface.
If the conditions and the bowling weren't hard enough to contend with, they also ran into Santner who had a storming day in the field. He took two good catches to send back the openers off successive balls, and later pulled off a spectacular assist to remove top-scorer Manish Pandey, sprinting from long-on, throwing himself to his right, plucking the ball out of mid-air and flicking it to Colin de Grandhomme coming the other way from deep midwicket.
All this left New Zealand 68 to win their first proper series, in any format, in India, and Chahal and Bumrah led the defence with combined figures of 4-0-17-2. New Zealand scored 44 off their other four overs, but it wasn't quite enough.
Colin Munro began the chase ominously, stepping out to the first ball he faced and launching Bhuvneshwar Kumar over the midwicket boundary. Bhuvneshwar pulled things back through the rest of the over with a succession of knuckle balls, the last of them sneaking past Martin Guptill's slog and rattling his off stump, and New Zealand were 8 for 1.
Munro's power made him a key wicket for India, and Bumrah prised him out with three excellent balls - all of them hitting the deck just short of a good length and forcing the left-hander to hit against the right-arm-over angle. Two dots forced Munro to charge out, Bumrah saw him coming and shortened his length, and his cross-bat heave skewed over mid-on, from where Rohit Sharma sprinted to complete a tumbling stunner. Only three came off that over.
Chahal, relishing the grip and turn on offer, kept the ball wide of off stump to both right- and left-hander, and didn't concede a single boundary in his two overs. Every second ball he bowled was a dot, and this was especially commendable given the pressure he bowled in.
Colin de Grandhomme had just launched Kuldeep Yadav for a flat six over long-on - perhaps the cleanest hit of the night - when Chahal came on to bowl the sixth over with New Zealand needing 32 off the last three. He beat the bat with his first two balls to de Grandhomme, both on a length too short to hit down the ground but not short enough to hit square, both pitching outside off and making him reach, one a slider and one a ripping legbreak.
India used Bumrah in the penultimate over, and even though it wasn't his best over - it included a wide, a succession of byes, and a full-toss flicked for four by Tom Bruce - it still only cost 10 runs, and left New Zealand 19 to get off the last six balls.
Kohli went for Hardik Pandya rather than Kuldeep, and the allrounder closed it out, though not without a couple of alarms. De Grandhomme stung Pandya's left hand with a powerful straight hit, and next ball clubbed a slower one over the square leg boundary to bring the equation down to 14 off three. A wide next ball made it 13 off three, but Pandya pulled himself together and found the lengths to deny de Grandhomme and Santner any more big hits.
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