New Zealand crush India by 200 runs
It could best be described as a thrashing in the end. New Zealand romped to their best ever win over http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750, as they smashed the Indian side by 200 runs in the first ODI at Dambulla to record full points – including one bonus point. The Indian captain was left grasping for excuses.
Winning the toss, the Kiwis decided to bat first, given that the track was expected to become difficult to bat on in the second innings of the game under the light. The move seemed to have backfired as the New Zealand side failed to come to terms with the swing of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 side to 28/3 by the seventh over.
However, the damage did not go beyond that. Captain Ross Taylor, who is standing-in for Daniel Vettori for this series, was joined by Scott Styris and the pair batted cautiously to begin with. With the Indian attack suffering from the lack of experience after Kumar and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ashish-Nehra-c46293 were seen off, the Kiwis did not lose any further wickets as they built on a partnership.
Abhimanyu Mithun found the conditions difficult to control and the heat and the humidity took a toll on him. He managed to bowl only four overs, before retiring back to the pavilion. This meant that Indian captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/MS-Dhoni-c2028 was a bowler short and the now-prospering Kiwi partnership took its full toll on the Indian bowling.
The pair of Taylor and Styris added 190 runs for the fourth wicket, and by the time Styris was dismissed for 89, the job had been done. At the other end, even Taylor could not get to a century, missing it by five runs, but the tail hit out lustily, and the Kiwis ended the innings on 288.
India needed a rather huge 289 to win, and with the tall Kiwi pace bowlers to face up to, the task was never going to be easy.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virender-Sehwag-c95429 provided a good start to the innings, as they added 36 for the first wicket off seven overs. However, it was the twin-blow off successive deliveries that took the wind out of their sails. Sehwag nicked one to the wicket-keeper off Kyle Mills and then Darryl Tuffey got an LBW off Karthik in his favour.
The rest of the Indian team could only provide catching practice to the slips as they collapsed from 36/0 to 88 all out. Tuffey ended with 3/34, whereas Jacob Oram and Kyle http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mills-c76321 scalped a couple of wickets each.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Taylor-c92915 was declared the man of the match, while Indian captain Dhoni was left ruing the spongy nature of the pitch.
Tags: