New Zealand played left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, who got Man of the Match award for his four-wicket haul, while leg-spinner Ish Sodhi got three wickets.
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New Zealand captain Kane Williamson said his team are aware of the threat Indian bowlers could pose on the spin-friendly Nagpur wicket.
The Kiwis sprung a surprise before a ball had even been bowled with the news that pace-bowlers Trent Boult and Tim Southee had been dropped in favour of spin options.
The result blows Australia’s group wide open, with only two teams to progress out of India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Bangladesh – and two losses likely to be enough to result in an early exit. “We are going to make use of this”, Williamson said after winning toss.
The duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja should be the front-runners to take up two spots and the team has the choice of adding either Harbhajan Singh or Pawan Negi to the combination.
Here’re some exciting next few days for all the cricket fanatics, the ICC T20 World Cup Main League match begins from today.
Having won the last three T20 worldwide series, India will start their campaign in ICC World T20 tournament against New Zealand at Nagpur on Tuesday as hot favourites. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the pitches produce. Skipper Kane Williamson then smashed an entertaining 63 when New Zealand narrowly lost to England in their final warm-up match on Saturday.
While he felt that Indians seemed “over-confident”, the Black Caps needed to be lauded for their team combination.
As wickets kept tumbling at the other end, Corey Anderson (34) tried to steady the innings and it was Luke Ronchi’s (21 not out) 11-ball cameo that took them past the 125-mark.
“I think overconfidence led to the downfall of India”. Home captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni waged a lone battle with a run-a-ball 30 but the celebrated finisher could not get his team over the line.
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“What we’ve learned from playing in big tournaments in the past is that we have to stay as calm as possible and focus on the skills that need to be executed on the field”, said Kohli.
