India - New Zealand Series

India v New Zealand, 1st T20: NZ win by 7 wickets

India lost their tour opener to New Zealand going down by seven wickets in the first T20 match at Christchurch. New Zealand have taken a 1-0 lead in the two match series.

New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori won the toss and decided to bat first. Gambhir and Sehwag fell with the score on 6 and 26. Rohit Sharma was sent back by Ian Butler back after putting just 7 runs to the board. Yuvraj Singh too failed to revive the Indian innings and was caught napping in front of the wickets by skipper Daniel Vettori. Skipper Dhoni was out for 2 runs and India were in trouble at 61/5.

Yusuf Pathan looked dangerous and smashed three consecutive sixes off McCullum and brother Irfan joined him back in the pavilion on 12 runs to leave them gasping on 101 at the loss of seven wickets. Tailender Harbhajan Singh and Raina were left the responsibility to hit some shots in and around the ground and they played up to the expectations. Raina (61*) hit a timely fifty and Harbhajan (21) supported him well to push the Indian total to 162/8 at the end of the innings.

Brendon McCullum’s (56*) splendid fifty took the hosts to a convincing 7-wicket victory over Team India in the Twenty20 opener at Christchurch on Wednesday. He was the Man of the Match for the day. For India, Zaheer, Harbhajan and Ishant bowled well to take a wicket each but the efforts weren’t enough to take their side home.

Lanky pacer Ishant Sharma struck on his first ball to get the breakthrough for his side by clinching opener Jesse Ryder’s (1) wicket. But the arrival of Martin Guptill spoiled the Indian party and then it only rained fours and sixes. Guptill (41) sliced Indian bowling to take the score 54/1 at the end of five overs. Taylor kept the momentum to hit 31 runs and added on to the Indian worries before Zaheer Khan uprooted his leg stump. Jacob Oram walked in for the final few overs. India was not left with many options in the end as McCullum’s solid strokes in and outside the boundary left the visitors beleaguered. He hit a brilliant 49-ball fifty to get Black Caps their first win of the series.

The second match will be played on 27th February.

Tags: India, new zealand