Published: Jan 28, 2023, 08:43 AM (IST)
Edited: Jan 28, 2023, 11:03 AM (IST)
Ranchi: On Friday, New Zealand defeated India by 21 runs in the first T20 International at the JSCA International Stadium to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. Daryl Mitchell and Devon Conway scored excellent half-centuries, and captain Mitchell Santner put on a fantastic spin show.
Santner struck on his first ball as Shubman Gill went backfoot to pull off a slower delivery. But the ball stopped and turned at him, resulting in the bottom edge going to the square leg. He also managed to slip in a maiden over in the last over of powerplay against Suryakumar.
The NZ skipper finished his spell with astonishing numbers as he grabbed two big wickets in his four overs spell and only gave away 11 runs in them. His spell played a vital role in restricting India to 155 runs.
“It was a bit of a shock for everyone involved, how much it kinda spun in the second innings. But it was a great game and it was pretty tight at the end, we saw a lot of runs in the ODI series and it was nice to see the ball spin a bit more. I don’t think we were ever safe, 170-odd was nice with Daryl hitting a couple over and he batted extremely well, we knew we had a sniff with 180. It was nice to chip away some wickets in the powerplay and we had troubled doing that in the ODIs,” Santner on the pitch being helpful to spinners.
“At the toss, we were going to bowl because we know chasing is so good over here and especially with the dew. That’s always the challenge (on captain using himself). You don’t want to be seen doing the easy overs and stuff like that. We knew it was spinning in the powerplay and it was nice to chip one out,” Santner concluded
