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India’s first defeat at Ranchi and other interesting numbers from India-New Zealand 4th ODI

MS Dhoni surpassed Mohammad Azharuddin’s tally of scoring most runs as Indian captain against New Zealand in ODIs.

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New Zealand beat India by 19 runs in the 4th ODI at Ranchi © AFP
New Zealand beat India by 19 runs in the 4th ODI at Ranchi © AFP

The fourth One-Day International (ODI) of the series between India and New Zealand was played at JSCA International Stadium Complex, Ranchi. Batting first, New Zealand had an excellent start with opener Martin Guptill scoring 72, while his partner Tom Latham made 39. After them, skipper Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor did not quite keep the tempo going. Williamson scored 41 of 59, while Taylor made 58-ball 35. Their partnership kind of put New Zealand on the back foot, as they were at one stage looking set to reach to a total around 280. In the end, they made 260 with the loss of seven wickets. Leggie Amit Mishra scalped two wickets, while Umesh Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya and Akshar Patel got one wicket each. Surprisingly, Kedar Jadhav did not get any wicket, who was easily getting at least one wicket in last three games.

In return, India’s top order once again failed with opener Rohit Sharma scoring only 11. Though, Ajinkya Rahane made 57, who had a decent partnership with Virat Kohli of 79 runs for second wicket. After the departure of both Kohli and Rahane, it was captain MS Dhoni’s turn to take the match forward but that did not happen as he too departed after scoring 11. Further, Akshar Patel tried his best with 40-ball 38 and later, Dhawal Kulkarni scoring 26-ball 25 but that did not help India in winning the match as they lost it by 19 runs. Unlike previous games, this match barely had any interesting stats but still we manage to present some.

MS Dhoni surpassed Mohammad Azharuddin’s tally of scoring most runs as Indian captain against New Zealand in ODIs. Dhoni has scored 682 runs till date against New Zealand, while Azharuddin has 678 runs against them. Overall, Dhoni is at third position in terms of scoring most runs as captain against New Zealand after Ricky Ponting — 1,440 runs and Greg Chappell — 713 runs.

43rd win for New Zealand in ODIs against India — their second most wins against any team. New Zealand’s most wins in ODIs have come against Sri Lanka with 45 victories. Their third most wins have so far come against Pakistan with 42 victories.

17th ODI for Dhoni as captain against New Zealand. He surpassed Ganguly’s tally of 16 ODIs as captain against New Zealand but is still behind Mohammad Azharuddin, who has played 25 ODIs in this criterion.

Till date, Dhoni is the only captain to lead his national side in all games across the formats in his hometown. India have so far played four ODIs and one Twenty20 International (T20I). In all these games, Dhoni played as captain for India. Well, this streak is likely to be broken by Virat Kohli soon, when India will play a Test against Australia at Ranchi under his captaincy. But in limited-overs format, Dhoni may held that record for next few years.

In all those four ODIs at Ranchi, Kohli has batted twice before this match and remained unbeaten on those two occasions. This is the first ODI when both got out at this venue. Kohli’s previous scores at this venue are 77 not out versus England and 139 not out against Sri Lanka but in this match, he got 45.

Akshar, Mishra and Kulkarni, all three got their best batting figures in ODIs. Akshar scored 38, Mishra made 14 and Kulkarni collected unbeaten 25 in this ODI, which are now their highest score in ODIs.

With this win, New Zealand have now levelled the series by 2-2 against India. Last time, New Zealand won two ODIs in bilateral series in India was in December 1999. In that series, New Zealand won the first and fourth ODI but lost rest of them, quite similar to the current one with last match still to be played.

First defeat for India in ODIs at Ranchi. India have played total of four ODIs in Ranchi. One ended with no result, two in favour of India and one they lost. Those two victories came while chasing and this time they were chasing too but lost the match.

Rohit so far has an awful run in this series. His scores in this ODI series read — 14, 15, 13 and 11. Only 12 is left in this sequence and the way Rohit has been playing, he can put that number too in next ODI but fans will expect him to score big.

So far, Mishra has got most wickets (10) to his name in this series. This is his third ODI series, where he has got 10 or more wickets. His best is of 18 wickets, which he took against Zimbabwe in 2013 and his second best of 11 wickets came against West Indies in 2011. Both the series were played outside India and this is the first time, Mishra has got 10 wickets in an ODI series at home.

15th Man of the Match (MOM) award for Guptill. He has got fourth most number of MOM awards as a Kiwi cricketer in ODIs after Nathan Astle — 25 MOM awards, Martin Crowe — 19 MOM awards and Stephen Fleming — 17 MOM awards. Well, out of 15, this was his first against India and seventh while playing away from home. With this away MOM award, he is currently standing at fifth position in this criterion after Astle  — 11 MOM awards, Crowe — 9 MOM awards, Fleming — 9 MOM awards and Chris Cairns — 8 MOM awards.

(Abhishek Kumar is a cricket devotee currently staffing with CricLife and CricketCountry.com. He can be followed at @abhik2593)

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