India wins T20 at Pallekele - Series against New Zealand at home

In the end it was a comfortable win for India in the solitary One dayer at Pallekele.  It’s a mindset that we expect only fours and sixers to flow in T20 – expecting it to be slambang – but India flourished through a good first wicket partnership between the inform Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahana who nudged and prodded singles and but for the odd six did not look like scoring. 

At the other end Virat Kohli was crisp and flowing making batting look easy with some well timed hits to the fence.  He was in total command picking gaps at will, finding boundaries with minimum effort and was the only batsman who scored fluently – Raina complemented with a good knock as Indian fans were denied another opportunity of Rohit Sharma perform.  With a string of failures, Rohit was still trusted and was seen padded up but could not get to face a ball. 

The score of 155 was good but not alarming – Lankans lost wickets regularly to Pathan and Ashok Dinda.  Lahiru Thrimanne compounded by making a mockery of reverse sweep off the first ball of Ashwin and seeing it land on his stumps.   Earlier Shaminda Eranga got the wicket of Gambhir in his first over of debut

Now India return to play New Zealand at home.  The Kiwis would play 2 tests and 2 T20s.  The 1st Test will be from Aug 23 – 27 at Hyderabad; 2nd one at Bangalore from Aug 31 – 4th Sept.   The T20s would be on Sept 8th and 11th – at Visakhapatnam and Chennai respectively.  Kiwis do not have any warm-up game in India.

 

New Zealand will be without their coach John Wright, who steps down after the WI tour.  NZ is not a great challenger at Indian soil and is currently ranked 8th in Test ranking as compared to India’s downgraded 4.  Their star bowler, the man who knows Indian conditions well, Daniel Vettori has been ruled out due to a groin injury he suffered in the West Indies.  , The offspinner Jeetan Patel has earned a recall as a result of his outstanding county form for Warwickshire, and the allrounder James Franklin has also been named in a 15-man squad.  The leggie of Indian origin Tarun Nethula is also part of the squad. 

The Kiwi Squad reads :  Martin Guptill, Daniel Flynn, Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor (capt), Kane Williamson, BJ Watling, James Franklin, Kruger van Wyk, Doug Bracewell, Tim Southee, Neil Wagner, Trent Boult, Tarun Nethula, Jeetan Patel, Chris Martin.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.