The third and final T20I between India and New Zealand ended up being a curtailed affair after inclement weather throughout the day reduced the match to eight-overs a side. In the end, the hosts edged the T20I series 2-1 after a tense 6-run win on Tuesday.
The two sides had come into the deciding tie of the three-match series at Thiruvananthpuram locked at 1-1 after the Blackcaps had roared back with a 40-run over in the second game at Rajkot.
Kane Williamson won the toss and elected to bat first with the weather conditions in mind.
Tim Southee came in for Adam Milne as the only change for the Kiwis while Kuldeep Yadav and Manish Pandey replaced Axar Patel and Mohammed Siraj for Virat Kohli’s men.
After a short but highly entertaining encounter, we look at the two good and bad performances of the night.
The Kiwi pacer was a replacement for Adam Milne and he repaid the faith shown by Williamson after putting in an impressive bowling display.
Southee has an array of slower balls at his disposal and he made full use of them on Tuesday by claiming both of India’s openers in the space of two balls.
The 28-year-old came on to bowl the third over and astonishingly bowled six off-cutters with two of them accounting for Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, both being caught by Mitchell Santner.
The pacer would repeat the trick in his second over as he ended up bowling 12 off-cutters in his 12 deliveries, going for only 13 runs in his quota of overs.
Two wickets in two balls for Tim Southee to remove the India openers, both caught by Mitchell Santner! #INDvNZ https://t.co/ixppC77mQZ
— ICC (@ICC) November 7, 2017
If Southee only went for 13 runs off his two overs, Jasprit Bumrah went one step further to upstage the Kiwi pacer.
The right-arm quick proved why is considered one of the elite death-bowling specialists in international cricket with a superb spell to turn the game on its head.
Bumrah’s opening over went for only two runs, accounting for the wicket of the dangerous Colin Munro with a slower delivery.
He was equally impressive in his second, deceiving Henry Nicholls with another slower delivery which the batsman could only miscue up in the air.
He ended up with match-winning figures of 2-9 off his two overs to seal the tie in India’s favour.
Defending 67 runs, India’s best bowlers went for just 4-0-17-2! That’s half the game there. Well bowled, @yuzi_chahal and @Jaspritbumrah93!
— Nikhil 🏏 (@CricCrazyNIKS) November 7, 2017
With a very attainable target of 68 to chase in eight overs, the odds were heavily stacked in New Zealand’s favour when the visitors came out to bat.
However, none of their top-order stood up to the task as the loss of early wickets set the Kiwis a long way back in the match.
Openers Colin Munro and Martin Guptill failed to repeat their heroics in the second T20I and both fell cheaply within the first two overs.
The fact that only two of New Zealand’s batsmen crossed double figures made for a poor report for Williamson’s men in a crunch encounter. The skipper himself was run-out for just eight runs after a brilliant direct hit by Pandya while the likes of Glenn Phillips, Nicholls and Tom Bruce failed to make themselves count on the night.
Ultimately the Kiwis’ batting performance let them down in the decider to hand India another hard-fought 2-1 series win.
The Blackcaps’ top-order batsmen failed to shine when it mattered most.
With only 48 deliveries on offer to the batting side, it was imperative that India’s best hitter of the ball Hardik Pandya get enough time in the middle.
In a baffling decision, the all-rounder was only sent in to bat at the end of the sixth over after the fall of India’s fourth wicket.
That Pandya faced only 10 deliveries ultimately in an unbeaten innings was a shocking strategy by Kohli and the coaching staff and it nearly cost them dearly in the end.
Surely it would have made more sense to send Pandya in ahead of Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey if not the skipper himself.
Kohli’s decision to hold Pandya back for long could have cost India.
