Hardik Pandya gets his ODI cap from Kapil Dev © Twitter
Hardik Pandya gets his ODI cap from Kapil Dev © Twitter

On the occasion of India’s historic 900th One-Day International (ODI), captain MS Dhoni decided to give chance to Hardik Pandya to make his debut. Pandya becomes India’s 215th player to receive ODI cap. Also, he received his cap from none other than India’s greatest all rounder Kapil Dev, who made his Test debut on the same day in 1978. Pandya made his India debut earlier this year in Australia during the Twenty20 International (T20I) series. So far, his major achievement as a cricketer is that final over against Bangladesh in the ICC World T20 2016, where Pandya won the match for India by conceding only nine runs from it and taking two crucial wickets.

As per India’s skipper Dhoni, pacers will be more effective than spinners and that was the reason behind him opting to field first after winning the toss against New Zealand. Apart from Pandya, other two pacers are Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah, while two spinners are Akshar Patel and Amit Mishra. Since opener Shikhar Dhawan is injured and not the part of this series, so Ajinkya Rahane will open with Rohit Sharma. From New Zealand, they have rested their two key pacers, Trent Boult and Matt Henry, while Tim Southee is back.

Well, Umesh was expected to open the bowling but it was quite surprising when Pandya came to bowl his first ever over in ODIs in the second over of the match. After conceding single in his first ball, Pandya leaked three boundaries, two of them came off edges, but he made his comeback in style by sending Martin Guptill back to the pavilion, inducing his outside edge to Rohit Sharma at second slip.

With that wicket, Pandya, who was already trending on social media for making his debut, attracted more tweets. He later dismissed Corey Anderson in the 11th over.