After having a successful tournament in Australia, India started their New Zealand tour with a comprehensive win over Black Caps in their backyard. Kuldeep Yadav’s four-wicket haul, Shami’s three and Dhawan’s steady innings set the stage of India’s win.
New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first. Martin Guptill and Colin Munro started their innings where Guptill welcomed Bhuvneshwar Kumar with a square leg boundary in the second ball of the first over. But this couldn’t stay long while Shami handed over the first break through to his team by picking up Guptil and completed his 100 ODI wickets. He became the fastest Indian to do so. Guptil’s dismissal brought New Zealand captain Kane Williamson on the field.
Just when Munro started hitting boundaries, Shami stopped his scoring by picking up in his second over which left New Zealand into trouble. In-form Ross Taylor came in to bat with six consecutive half-centuries from his last six innings and started building the partnership with captain Williamson. Both added 34 runs through a steady association before Chahal broke the partnership. Taylor gave a low catch to Chahal after scoring 24 off 41. Tom Latham hit some strokes before falling to Chahal in the 19th over. Henry Nicholls soon got dismissed while trying to hit at midwicket in Kedar Jadhav’s delivery, and New Zealand reduced to 107 for 5 by the 24th over.
Williamson stood strong at the other end while the wickets started falling at the other end. Shami once again took Santner before Kuldeep took the rest of the wickets. New Zealand was bowled out within 157 in the 38th over. Williamson scored a stable 64 off 81 before getting out off Yadav. Williamson was dropped in the 16th over on 21 but bowlers did so well that this didn’t become more dangerous.
While chasing this short target, India got off to a slow start. However, left-handed opener Shikhar Dhawan completed his 5,000 ODI runs as the second fastest Indian batsman. Both the openers Rohit Sharma and Dhawan gave a steady start to India, scored 41 runs in 9 overs before the break. Coming back from the break, New Zealand picked up their first wicket. Guptill took an easy catch at slip in Doug Bracewell’s delivery to sent Rohit in the dugout.
Captain Virat Kohli joined Dhawan on the crease after Rohit fell for 11 off 24. But before they could move further, match stooped due to sunlight because the sunrays were straight in the batsman's eye and Dhawan was unable to spot that ball. Match resumed after 30 minutes but the match lost one over and the new target was set to 156 from 49 overs.
Kohli and Dhawan started hitting all around the park and it became difficult for the bowlers’ to get past them. After adding 91 runs, Kohli finally fell for 45 off 59 by giving an easy catch to keeper. Dhawan played the role of an anchor, scored a 103-ball 75. He along with Rayadu added the rest of the runs and guided India a comfortable 8-wicket victory with 14.1 overs to spare.
Scores:
New Zealand 157 (Kane Williamson 64; Kuldeep Yadav 4-59) lost to India 156/2 (Shikhar Dhawan 75*) by 8 wickets by DLS method.
