Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk: Trent Boult swings the bowl both ways, holds on to the return catches after Williamson puts India in to embarrass the visitors by reducing them to 55 for 8. This was their second lowest score at the loss of the eighth wicket and the lowest total of 54 just about survived. But India failed to get to the 100-run mark and were bowled out for 92.
There were opposite scenes in the second innings. New Zealand finished the match before the lunch break, romping to an emphatic 8-wicket win in 14.4 overs. Martin Guptill smashed Bhuneshwar Kumar for two fours and a six in the first three deliveries before getting a leading edge off the fourth ball. Kumar then got one to move away to find the outside edge of Williamson’s bat to reduce New Zealand to 39 for 2. It was up to Ross Taylor to erase whatever little doubts that might have crept in because of the early wickets and he did a fine job by remaining unbeaten on 37 off 25 balls along with Henry Nicholls(30) to salvage some pride for New Zealand in the series which has already been won by India (3-1).
The was another common thing between Dharamsala and Hamilton apart from a massive Indian top-order collapse, no Virat Kohli. Reason? Rested in both ODIs. There was one striking difference though. In Dharamsala, there was MS Dhoni, who once again turned up like a messiah, scored 65 and somehow dragged India to 112 with a little help from Kuldeep Yadav(19). In Hamilton, there was no Dhoni either. He was yet to regain full fitness from his hamstring troubles.
Kuldeep did play his part in Hamilton too, scoring 15 invaluable runs and stitching together the highest partnership (25) of the innings with fellow wrist spinner Yuzvendra Chahal but it was certainly quite far from as effective in the match as their wrong’uns.
So disastrous was India’s batting display that Yuzvendra Chahal, who had crossed double figures only once his ODI before Thursday, ended up being the highest scorer of the team with an 18. Yes, there was swing on offer but nothing outrageous enough to be bundled out for 92.
It would, however, be extremely unfair to only talk about the technical faults of the Indian top-order minus Virat Kohli on a day New Zealand brought their A game to the table for the first time in the series. And the protagonist was Trent Boult, who picked up 5 for 21 equaling Richard Hadlee’s record for the most five-fors for New Zealand (5 each).
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It all started with a trademark Trent Boult in-swinger that for the umpteenth time exposed Shikhar Dhawan’s weakness against the moving ball, thudding onto his front pad. In all fairness to Dhawan, he looked a million dollars before falling prey to Boult’s deadliest weapon against the left-handers.
Boult’s next two wickets had nothing to do with swing. It was more the case of Indian batsmen playing early and playing in the air. First, it was Rohit Sharma, playing in his 200th ODI, who chipped it straight back to Boult and then it was 19-year-old debutant Shubman Gill (9) playing away from his body with an uppish bat. In both cases, Boult had the presence of mind and the fitness to bend down in time gobble up the return catches.
In between these caught and bowled dismissals, India were given body blows by all-rounder Collin de Grandhomme. Grandhomme, replacing Bracewell in this ODI, dismissed Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik for ducks in a space of four balls. before anyone could realise, India had lost half their side for 33. The last three wickets fell on the same score.
Kedar Jadhav looked clueless in front of Boult. After surviving a close LBW shout couple of deliveries ago, he once again failed to cope with Boult’s incoming delivery. Grandhomme was quick to clean up Bhuvneshwar Kumar, registering his career-best figures. This was the first time the big man had picked a three-for in an ODI.
Seeing the others fall like ninepins, Pandya decided to take the attack to Boult and was successful too for a brief period. His three fours off Boult in 19th over helped India cross the 50-run mark. Just like Dhawan, Pandya too looked good till the time he was out there. His counter-attack lofted strokes over mid-on forced Boult to push his length back. But that spelt doom for Pandya. Boult, who has an equally deadly bouncer like his swinging deliveries, got Pandya to fend at one for 16, ending India’s hopes of posting a total in excess of 100.
