New Zealand beat India by seven wickets in Hamilton as Seifert’s 93 ends the T20I series at 3-2

Kishan and Iyer rescue India from 19 for 2

New Zealand won the toss and bowled. Shreyas Iyer said at the toss that India had chased in each of the first four games and wanted a go at setting a target, according to Outlook India.

It started badly. Adam Milne removed Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson inside four overs and India were 19 for 2. Ishan Kishan, 61 off 32 balls with five sixes, and Iyer, 50 off 23, then added 93 for the third wicket, the stand that gave India a total at all.

Milne came back to finish with 4 for 19, and Blair Tickner and Nathan Smith took two each. Naman Dhir’s 33 off 23 got India to 191 for 8, a score that looked competitive until the sixth over of the chase.

Seifert and Phillips take the chase apart

Arshdeep Singh had Finn Allen for 2 early, and Varun Chakaravarthy, one of India’s two changes along with Bhuvneshwar Kumar, removed Daryl Mitchell for a 16-ball 29. Neither slowed New Zealand much. Seifert hit 11 fours and five sixes before Nitish Kumar Reddy bowled him in the 16th over, seven short of a hundred.

By then he and Phillips had added 86 for the third wicket. Phillips, who made 107 off 49 balls in the fourth T20I at Eden Park, saw the chase home and was named player of the series. “The calm and the composure, it’s a nice feeling,” he said, as reported by Outlook India.

Iyer did not hide from it. “Could’ve been better with our bowling and fielding which was sloppy,” he said.

What the last two games say about India’s attack

India rested players once the series was won, and that explains some of it. It does not explain all of it. Across the last two games New Zealand scored 454 runs for the loss of 10 wickets in 38 overs.

For the ODIs, the BCCI’s squad for the first three games brings back Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul under Shubman Gill, with Kishan, Iyer, Nitish Reddy, Dhir and Arshdeep carrying over from the T20Is. The bowling is where the change is biggest, with Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav and Anshul Kamboj in the 50-over group.

What happens next

The five-match ODI series starts in Auckland on Wednesday 4 November. Gill leads India in the first three games before Iyer takes over for the last two at Mount Maunganui on 13 and 15 November, News On AIR reported when the squads were named. Two Tests follow.

Market watch

• Going by Iyer’s account of the first four tosses, the side batting first won only one of the five T20Is, and that was the 259 at Eden Park. Toss-and-chase thinking will carry into the ODI previews, even if 50-over conditions differ.
• Phillips has scored 107 and 65 not out in his last two innings. He bats in the middle order, behind the openers who usually head the top-batter lists, which makes him worth a look in the ODIs.
• Milne took two wickets in his first spell and two more late on for his 4 for 19. If he plays in Auckland, India’s top order has a fresh problem in the first ten overs.
• India’s ODI XI will look nothing like Sunday’s. Treat any T20I form numbers carefully when the 50-over markets open.

For more on the format, see our T20 cricket hub, the latest match predictions and upcoming fixtures in our match centre.

Top image: Photo: JaumeBG / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons