New Zealand came back hard in the second T20I in Rajkot to level the series one all, as Colin Munro's entertaining century set the tone for the visitors, alongside followed a clinical bowling performance.
Not the just the result flipped in Kanpur but also the performance by India, as they dropped Colin Munro trice in the Innings. So was the case with openers of India, as they fell cheaply to Boult. While, in the bowling apart from B & B, the others had a contrasting day.
Mohammad Siraj has handed a debut in place of retired Nehra, while Kiwis, who won the toss, made 3 changes bringing in Tom Bruce, Phillips, and Adam Milne.
The debutant had a match, that, he has to forget soon or later, as both Kiwi openers targeted him hitting through the line putting him under pressure. Although Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah haven't given any easy runs, the Kiwi openers pondered on others to the cleaners.
It started with Siraj up front, but the real distraction began when Guptill lofted Chahal down the ground in his opening over. Munro joined Guptill to take the aggressor role after the powerplay, and Munro just stood his ground, powered his hands through the ball to clean the boundaries.
As doing so, he has also given chances to India, but Indian fielders failed to collect any one of them, which included 3 catches and a run-out, where the game turned on its head. Munro on top of those, went on, to score a century.
At the end, Kiwis seemed to get around 220-230, but Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah had pulled the things back to keep Kiwis under 200.
Meanwhile, India with chasing a target of 197, haven't had a great start with both openers Dhawan and Rohit fell in Boult’s first over. But, in came Iyer at No.3 as a surprise played his shots and seemed in a great nick.
Although some how, Iyer slowed down into the Innings as he found at the non-strikers too often and that appetite forced him to go big, where he missed on a couple of occasions, finally mistiming a slower one from Munro.
Pandya, at No.5, couldn't stay at the crease for long, as he was undone by a googly from Ish Sodhi. But Virat, who came in at No.4 played his shots irrespective of what happened around him and made the scorecard moving.
While, at the other end, Dhoni struggled to rotate the strike, as the Kiwi spinners employed a plan, not to pitch it full for him. And that plan led, to increase the required rate, Virat had done what he can, but there was not enough support from Dhoni to keep up with the rate.
At the end, Virat had no choice but to go after everything, in this process, he dismissed with trying to loft a short of a length ball from Santner. Later the required rate only peaked as Dhoni's late fire couldn't stop anything.
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