Jaipur: India registered a thrilling victory in their first game under the reign of coach Rahul Dravid beating New Zealand by 5 wickets to go 1-0 up in the three match T20I series in Jaipur on Wednesday.
Chasing a tricky 165, India needed 10 runs off the last over. Venkatesh Iyer on his debut, cracked a boundary on the second delivery before getting dismissed on the next one. Rishabh Pant smashed one for a boundary over long off to seal the deal.
However, the hosts got a blistering start as Rohit Sharma(48) smashed the Kiwi bowlers getting 50 in just 5 overs despite KL Rahul(15) getting dismissed early. Suryakumar Yadav(62) joined hands at the crease with his Mumbai compatriot sending India to 109 in the 14 th over before Rohit got dismissed just short of a deserving half century. Suryakumar though kept piling up runs but after his removal in the 17th over. Kiwis came back well stretching game to the wire although unable to restrict the hosts. Trent Boult topped the charts for the Blackcaps(2/31) alongside Mitchell Santner(1/19).
Earlier, Martin Guptill(70) and Mark Chapman’s(63) stood up for to post 164 in 20 overs. The duo added 109 runs for the second wicket laying the base up when other in the line up failed to live up to the expectations. Apart from these two, Tim Schiefert was the only man to get into double digits. Indian bowlers showed up the prowess in their first game under the new coaching management with Ravichandran Ashwin(2/23) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar(2/24) topping the charts.
Brief Scores: India 166/5 in 19.4 overs(Suryakumar Yadav 62, Rohit Sharma 48; Trent Boult 2/31) beat New Zealand 164/6 in 20 overs (Martin Guptill 70, Mark Chapman 63; Ravi Chandran Ashwin 2/23) by 5 wickets.
