India take T20I series 3-2 despite Hamilton loss; Rohit and Kohli return for New Zealand ODIs
New Zealand won the fifth T20I in Hamilton by seven wickets, but India took the series 3-2. The five-match ODI series, with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli back, starts on 4 November at Eden Park.
India have wrapped up the T20I leg of their New Zealand tour with a 3-2 series win, even though the final act in Hamilton on 1 November belonged to the hosts. New Zealand chased down India's 191 for 8 with seven wickets and 12 balls to spare, riding Tim Seifert's 93 and an unbeaten 65 from Glenn Phillips. Now the tour shifts gear: the five-match ODI series starts on 4 November at Eden Park in Auckland, and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are back in India blue.
How Hamilton slipped away
Put in to bat, India lost Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson to Adam Milne inside the first four overs, which is never the start you want on a quick New Zealand deck. Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer then turned the innings around with a 93-run stand that took barely seven overs. Kishan made 61 off 32 balls and Iyer hammered a half-century, with both enjoying some loose New Zealand fielding along the way.
The trouble came after they left. Kishan holed out off Blair Tickner in the 11th over, Iyer followed in the next, and India's back half of the innings never found the same tempo. Milne finished with 4 for 19 from his four overs and was named Player of the Match, which tells you how the death overs went.
Seifert and Phillips shut the door
New Zealand's chase was almost serene. Seifert was dropped on 13 by Naman Dhir early on and made India pay with 93 off 50 balls, falling seven short of a maiden T20I hundred when he dragged a Nitish Kumar Reddy delivery onto his stumps. By then he and Phillips had added 86 for the third wicket, and New Zealand reached 195 for 3 in 18 overs.
Phillips was the story of the whole series. His 65 not out took him to 341 runs across the five games, including a century, and that is the most anyone has scored in a five-match bilateral T20I series. India won the first three matches; New Zealand took the last two, including an 87-run thumping at Eden Park in the fourth game.
The ODI series: dates, venues, squad
All five ODIs start at 3pm local time, which is 7:30am IST, so this is breakfast cricket for Indian fans. Here is the schedule:
- 1st ODI: 4 November, Eden Park, Auckland
- 2nd ODI: 7 November, Wellington
- 3rd ODI: 10 November, Seddon Park, Hamilton
- 4th ODI: 13 November, Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui
- 5th ODI: 15 November, Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui
Shubman Gill captains India in the first three ODIs with Shreyas Iyer as his deputy, and Iyer takes charge for the last two. Rohit and Kohli are in the squad for all five games. The BCCI has also made a couple of late changes: Prasidh Krishna is out of the ODI series with a hamstring injury, and pacer Auqib Nabi has been added for the first three matches after originally being picked only for the last two. Nitish Kumar Reddy plays the first ODI only before joining India A to prepare for the two-Test series that begins on 19 November.
The FHM take
A 3-2 win away from home is a good result, but the last two games were a reminder that New Zealand do not roll over in their own backyard. Losing two straight to end the series takes a bit of shine off it. The good news is that the ODIs bring back Rohit and Kohli, India's two most reliable ODI batters, on grounds where the ball flies. Set an alarm for 7:30am on 4 November; this one is worth losing a little sleep over.
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