With this victory, the Indian team has maintained its record by winning for the 9th time out of 10 in the decisive matches of the Bilateral T20 series at home.
Image Credit source: AFP
It is not easy to win any bilateral series against India in India. Every team in the world has realized this in the last decade. So whenever you get a chance, you should grab it. New Zealand also had this opportunity, but like many other teams, they too failed to capitalize on it. In the last and decisive match of the three-match T20 series between the two teams, India won the series by defeating New Zealand by a huge record margin of 168 runs. Centurion Shubman Gill, fast bowler and all fielders were the stars of Team India’s victory.
After losing badly in the very first match of the series in Ranchi, Team India came back on a difficult pitch in Lucknow to win and equalise. In such a situation, all eyes were on Ahmedabad, where better batting than the first two matches and a better performance from Team India was needed, so that the series could be in hand and the spectators could also be entertained. Team India did this on every front.
The Indian batsmen had already set a record score of 234 runs in the match. His talk further, before that the bowlers were amazing, who piled on New Zealand for just 66 runs on a batsman-friendly pitch and registered the biggest win in their T20 history. Leading this performance was the captain of the team, Hardik Pandya, who pushed New Zealand to the backfoot from the very first over of the innings and took 4 wickets for just 16 runs.
Suryakumar Yadav also had a big contribution in Hardik’s excellent bowling, who took two amazing catches of exactly the same kind by jumping upwards in the slips in his two different overs.
ICYMI – WHAT. A.CATCH????????#TeamIndia vice-captain @surya_14kumar takes a stunner to get finn allen#INDvNZ , @mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/WvKQK8V67b
— BCCI (@BCCI) February 1, 2023
Surya also took a tremendous catch at the boundary and helped the bowlers completely. Apart from Hardik, Arshdeep Singh took two wickets in one over and by the third over itself New Zealand had lost 4 wickets for 7 runs. The situation would have been worse had Darryl Mitchell not played a few shots. He was dismissed as the last batsman on the first ball of the 13th over. Apart from Hardik from India, Arshdeep, Shivam Mavi and Umran Malik also took 2-2 wickets.
Now talk of Team India’s batting, which was entirely in the name of Shubman Gill. Since scoring his first Test century in December last year, Gill, who has been scoring centuries, has accomplished this feat in T20 cricket as well. Two weeks ago, after scoring a maiden double century in ODIs against New Zealand, Gill created a sensation by hitting his first international hundred in T20s as well. After the T20 series against Sri Lanka and the failure of the first two matches of this series, Gill showed his ability in this decisive match.
The 23-year-old opener hit a century in just 54 balls. He returned unbeaten after scoring 126 runs in 63 balls, which is the record for the biggest score for India in this format.