A much composed India edge past Kiwis to win the first T20I

After a heart-breaking defeat in the hands of Pakistan and New Zealand in the World T20 Series, team India finally took the revenge as the men in blue defeated the Kiwis by 5 wickets. With that, team India is now leading the series by 1-0 as both the teams will take on each other on Friday at Ranchi.

With Rohit Sharma as the captain of the team and Rahul Dravid as a new appointed head coach, the team looks a bit composed. Something that is needed after getting knocked out pretty early from the tournament. It’s not that the team wasn’t composed before but the calmness and a new environment will help players like Suryakumar Yadav, Venkatesh Iyer and other such newcomers in the team.

Speaking about the match, the biggest positive will be Ravichandran Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s form. These two stalwarts of Indian cricket have won India games multiple times in the past and in order to establish this side as a T20 giant, these two can play a very important part. Bhuvneshwar’s in-swingers were pitch perfect and Ashwin is known for his brains and the way he dismissed Jimmy Neesham is the perfect example of why he still is a very dangerous white ball cricketer.

Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma pretty much did the job for India. Yadav scored 62 off 40 balls while Sharma scored 48 off 36 balls. When India was cruising for victory, Kiwi pacers brought them into the game and the match was over with only 2 balls left. India should have won the match with 15 balls to go at least and this should be a learning lesson. Dragging the match to the final over isn’t healthy at all.

Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer got their fair chance to finish the game but both these players failed to do so. This shouldn’t hurt their confidence but they need to realize that the competition is pretty tough right now. The likes of Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya are not a part of the team and when they get in, these two players are very likely to get dropped. Venkatesh will directly compete with Hardik and Shreyas with almost everyone in the middle order. Thus, these two players need to prove their worth in T20I cricket in order to book their place in the national team for the next T20 World Series in Australia.

To conclude, team India looks to be in a perfect condition. No one expected New Zealand to play this well specially after three days of the heartbreaking final but they surprised everyone and played some good cricket at Jaipur. The Indian Cricket fans can’t wait for what’s in store in Ranchi and then in the iconic Eden Gardens.