New Zealand Beat India In Opening World T20 Match

New Zealand Beat India In Opening World T20 Match

New Zealand defeated India in the opening ICC World Twenty20 game on Tuesday night in what was a low scoring game. Santner and Sodhi took seven wickets for New Zealand to restric India to just 79 runs in 127 chase.

Kane Williamson won the toss the elected to bat first in a pitch destined to play slow. New Zealand made their intentionsl clear in the very eventful first over when Martin Guptill hit Ashwin for six on the very first ball and got out immediately afterwards, New Zealand lost another couple of wickets before Corey Anderson and lower middle order put up a decent score of 126 in 20 overs.
Looking at the form of Indian top order, it was widely predicted as a walk in the park but it did no turn out that way. Williamson’s decision of leaving out Southee from the playing XI in place of a extra spinner paid off as India struggle to get the grip on the chase. India lost 4 wickets inside 24 runs while they could never get hold of the chase even when Kohli and MS Dhoni were playing. Ultimately they paid the price of not negotiating spin and bowled out for a mere 79 runs resulting in New Zealand winning the first match by 47 runs which is huge considering it was low scoring game.
Mitchell Santner was the star of the show as he took 4 indian wickets in a superb spell where he only gave away 11 runs in 4 overs putting huge pressure on India chasing what was a small target. Indian born spinner Ish Sodhi was also at heart of the action taking three wickets including the prized wicket of most inform batsman in the world. Virat Kohli.
Earlier in the game Indian bowlers bowled as a compact unit and never gave New Zealand time to recover and build partnerships. New Zealand lost 7 wickets with 5 indian bowlers taking wicket a piece. here is the full scorecard.
New Zealand will be delighted with the start of their World T20 campaign while Indian is now under massive pressure and with little margin of error in the remaining three games which they must win in order to qualify for the semifinals.