India Thrash Kiwis In 5th ODI, Clinch Series

As the New Zealand players made their way to their final practice session on the tour of India, one could see the toll this tour has taken on them on their exhausted faces. Williamson said the Kiwi batsmen did not justify to lose eight wickets for just 16 runs. “We were extremely poor with the bat”, he said. Dropped on eight by Ish Sodhi off his own bowling, Kohli made ideal use of that reprieve, accumulating runs at a brisk pace.

“Unfortunately, sometimes the biggest and brightest lessons come from failures and defeats”.

“I certainly do hope we learn a lot from this series”. For this very relation, and to spread a special message, Team India sported a different set of jerseys on Saturday with their mothers’ names on it, instead of their last names. “India will need Dhoni and I am sure he is not going to walk away just like that”. Their opponents, in fact, too were equally inconsistent but slight luck and some extraordinary individual performances won them the series.

New Zealand are looking for their first-ever victory in a bilateral ODI series on Indian soil, and are coming off a 1-1 series draw in South Africa, and a three-match blanking by India in the Test series that immediately preceded the ODI showdown.

“Yeah, it’s extremely disappointing”.

In both Dharamsala and Mohali, Kohli played match-winning knocks and the absence of such impactful innings in the second and fourth ODI worked in favour of New Zealand. Thankfully for Mishra and Dhoni, those deliveries fetched more wickets than runs. “If you see the last one-and-a-half years, we didn’t play much ODI cricket”. At the moment we want to reflect on our performance here.

“Axar Patel has also been doing well, and if newcomers keep doing well like this, it will be good for India“.

In hindsight, it turned out to be one that was far more formidable than anyone at the stadium expected. “They were fantastic”, he said.

Batting first, India scored 269 for six on a surface where scoring was hard as Rohit Sharma (70) and Virat Kohli (65) hit half-centuries.

He along with Axar Patel (24 from 18 balls) put together 46 from 39 to ensure that they get past 250.

“He (Mitchell Santner) has been outstanding”. A young cricketer, who is newish to our side. And if Dhoni looks back to this series, the biggest takeaway for him would be the number of bowlers he has gained from this series. He’s a great asset to have. He acknowledges that the key to this lies, apart from his fizzing leg-breaks, in improving his fielding and batting.

Ross Taylor and Martin Guptill have shown glimpses of good form while the Kiwis will look for consistency from Tom Latham and skipper Kane Williamson with the bat.

“I think Virat (Kohli) was superb with the bat”.

Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor tried to stem the rot with a 35-run partnership. “One wicket led to another and we bowled them out cheaply”, added Mishra.

On the other hand, India’s over-reliance on Virat Kohli has been exposed in the ongoing series.

The tailenders weren’t culpable in this farce but it summed up how visually and technically impaired New Zealand’s batsmen were on turning pitches on this India tour.

“It is a tough one. Here I am questioning it”, he said. Obviously, it wasn’t happening for us today.

“We knew that if we could get some partnerships together, we could’ve done better”, admitted Williamson. He (Mishra) bowled very well. (India coach) Anil Kumble also talked to me about it before the match, to trust my strength, to trust the flighted balls.