After Rohit, Virat score hundreds, Bumrah ensures 6-run victory as hosts clinch series 2-1 against NZ
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson erred in making an assessment of Kanpur's weather. Having won the toss on Sunday in the crucial decider of the three-match ODI series, Williamson called it right before calling it wrong.
The Black Caps were under the wrong impression that late evening dew will affect the day-night game. Williamson first called the coin right but wrongly invited Virat Kohli to have a go first on this belter of a wicket here at the Green Park stadium.
India took full advantage of the situation as Rohit Sharma, along with skipper Kohli, slammed quick-fire centuries to post a mammoth 337/6. And, when New Zealand got down to chase, even the gutsy performances under pressure by Colin Munro (75), Williamson (64), Ross Taylor (39), Tom Latham (65) and Henry Nicholls (37) were not enough to see them home as they fell six runs short of what would have been a memorable chase against the hosts.
All this was not possible without those three overs by shorter-format specialist Jasprit Bumrah, who came into bowl his last three overs when the visitors needed 50 from the last five. Having been famous for bowling in the block hole, Bumrah didn't try anything different on Sunday and gave just 24 runs in his last 18 balls.
To the Kiwis' disappointment, Indian bowlers never faced any problem of gripping white ball till the end. Despite this, the visitors were in the game till the very end, needing 34 from the last 24 balls with seven wickets in hand.
Opener Munro started off his innings with a six off the very first ball he faced from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and went about his business thereon. Munro was particularly harsh on Kumar, who conceded 92 runs for just one wicket, a rare off day for him.
Williamson supported the left-hander well by scoring a sizeable knock for the first time in the series. It was Kohli's trusted spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who finally broke this 109-run dangerous stand between the two. After castling Munro for 75, Chahal also later got rid of the Kiwi skipper for 64.
Latham (65 off 52 balls) and Nicholls (37 off 24b) kept tourists within touching distance before Bumrah (3/47) came up his consistent yorkers to help India win their seventh consecutive bilateral ODI series, and fifth under Kohli's captaincy.
Latham, in particular, would be cursing his decision to attempt an impossible run.
Rohit, the star
Earlier, Rohit Sharma looked to be in a different touch having returned to his happy hunting ground.
Having been under pressure for failing in the first two games, scoring 20 and 7, Sharma started off with a boundary off Tim Southee in the first over of the game. Rohit has a lot of happy memories of Kanpur, where he scored 150 against South Africa in 2015.
The Mumbaikar unleashed his aggression by despatching Adam Milne for a six over deep mid-wicket. He never looked back after reaching his first fifty of this series in the 17th over. Kohli kept rotating the strike to back his smashing partner.
Southee, along with Trent Boult, kept attacking the Indian openers on or around the off-stump. The occasional boundaries kept leaking in between, but their tactic paid off finally when Shikhar Dhawan danced down the track to launch Southee over his head.
Dhawan only ended up offering a simple catch at mid-off to fall on 14. That brought skipper Kohli to have yet another double hundred partnership with his tried and tested partner. Kohli got off the mark with his trademark flick shot while Sharma continued exploiting every loose ball from the Black Caps.
The duo kept finding boundaries at regular intervals and in the process Sharma became only the second player after his skipper to score more than 1,000 runs in ODIs in 2017. And not to forget that the two also have a dozen 100-run stands between them. Both would certainly be looking to break Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag stand of 13 before aiming the ultimate Tendulkar-Sourav Ganguly duo's 26.
The partnership was finally broken by left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner in the 42nd over when Rohit tried to hit one straight over long-off. His 138-ball innings included 18 fours and two sixes.
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 "Rohit Sharma (left) and Virat Kohli")
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