When rain stopped play in the 36th over, India, chasing 316, were 203 for five. Actually, they were staring down the barrel. Needless to say, New Zealand were on the verge of their first win on this tour.
When rain stopped play in the 36th over, India, chasing 316, were 203 for five. Actually, they were staring down the barrel. Needless to say, New Zealand were on the verge of their first win on this tour.
But then, Yusuf Pathan had other ideas. He came up with an unassuming 123, off 96 balls, to seal the fourth ODI. The victory came in the 49th over, with five wickets in hand.
At the start of their chase, India did not look all that dominant. But openers Gautam Gambhir and Parthiv Patel then accelerated to take the side to 67 after the ninth over.
New Zealand bounced back, just like they did during their batting. In the 10th over, Andy McKay got rid of the stand-in captain and immediately followed it up with the wicket of Virat Kohli for nought.
Nathan McCullum then picked up a couple to reduce India to 108 for four. India would have been in deeper trouble had umpire Amiesh Saheba upheld a caught-behind decision against Rohit Sharma. The batsman was on zero then.
After the rain break, India made best use of the batting powerplay as Pathan treated it like a T20 match. It certainly seemed so when he smacked a monstrous six off Kyle Mills in the 38th over. He had just warmed up then. Pathan then smashed three boundaries and two sixes to bring up his century off just 79 balls.
Saurabh Tiwary (37 off 39 balls) was a mute spectator to Pathan’s heroics. The Kiwis did not seem to have a formula to get rid of him and eventually gave away the match without a fight.
Earlier, numbers 1,6,6,4,4, seem like an ISD code. Those were the figures James Franklin had to offer to the Bangalore crowd in the final over of the New Zealand innings. After Nathan McCullum scored a single off the first ball, the 50th over of the innings turned out to be a nightmare for Ashish Nehra. What followed were two massive, back-to-back sixes and fours as New Zealand crossed the 300-run mark, taking 21 runs.
The sixes were a spectator’s delight. The first one was smashed over the bowler’s head and the second one sailed over long-off, taking Franklin to 89. Three balls were left in the over and Franklin was in with a realistic chance to reach his century. He lofted a leg-side delivery to the mid-off region quite graciously. Two balls and seven runs. A dropped catch in the deep took him to 97.
At this stage, the crowd appeared to be wanting him to score his century. But it was not to be. Nehra unleashed a perfect yorker that resulted in just a single and New Zealand ended their innings at 315 for seven, their highest total in this series.
Franklin may have missed his ton but he appeared to have clinched a berth in New Zealand’s World Cup squad. Who knows, it may even land him an IPL deal. Coming in at No 6, the 30-year-old shouldered the pressure well to give his side a formidable total. He consumed just 69 balls for 98 runs after New Zealand’s star batsmen, Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum, failed to convert their aggression into runs. Taylor got out on 44, while McCullum made 42. Martin Guptill scored 30.
For India, off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin came good with the ball. Pathan’s bowling figures (three for 49), too, were impressive. Nehra also managed a couple of wickets but ended up conceding 70 runs in nine overs.
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