http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 defeat New Zealand in 1st ODI
Virat Kohli made it possible for India to easily overcome an experienced New Zealand side with his second successive, and, fourth career century at Guwhati on Sunday.
India was skeptical about its young side in the One Day International (ODI) series with New Zealand, which lived up to expectations and made a comfortable win by batting first on a pitch which offered a little to the bowlers, and were able to put up a hard
target of 276 on the board in 50 overs.
There were some concerns about the young Indian side under newly appointed captain of India http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Gautam-Gambhir-c58623. In the last 10 overs in both innings India’s last six wickets fell for just 26 runs and India was also not able to contain the Kiwi tail enders that
gave a brilliant ninth wicket stand of 67 runs between Kyle Mills and Nathan McCullum of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Taylor-c92915.
He proved that he can be considered as an attacking option while operating inside the power plays with varying and controlled bowling, which gave him wickets regularly. Ashwin was the most consistent bowler for India in the first One Dayer against New Zealand.
Kohli was not as flashy as much as compared to others as he could find only 10 boundaries for his 104 as compared to Yuvraj’s seven for 42. Gambhir’s six for 38, and Murali Vijay’s five for 29 but he ran very fast and was able to bat cautiously and placed
the ball in the right gaps and he succeeded.
He was also very fast to settle on the crease and there was no incidence of dramatic acceleration from him except a big shout from Kyle http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mills-c76321 for an inside edge but replays showed that there was not any deviation. Kohli liked to find gaps especially in the
on-side and he took charge when Yuvraj was dismissed for 42 but it didn’t bring any drastic changes as he made 42 runs off his last 31 balls.
Kohli looked quite confident and comfortable when he reached his 90s, which he showed by hitting two boundaries. H also made sufficient use of the last power play and upon reaching his landmark for the fourth time, celebrated with a smile, which is a good
representation of Kohli as a batsman.
Yuvraj played well on his return, both with the bat and with the ball. He made 42 runs which were very helpful for India and very efficient with the ball by taking 3 important wickets of Tuffey, Styrus and Williamson for India.
On the New Zealand side, Mckay and Mills were very brilliant with slower bouncers in the power play and also with the quicker ones especially McKay, who managed to get the ball to leave the right handed batsman from around the wicket.
When Martin Guptill began chasing with 6 boundaries in the first 6 overs it seemed that New Zealand will achieve the target very easily but then there was no batsman in New Zealand’s middle order, who could take the responsibility, except the captain of
the side, Ross Taylor, who made a 66 run knock.
Tags: