First ODI Against New Zealand: What A Match
Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
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By Slogger
First publised on 2023-01-19 07:23:07
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Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
View all posts by this Author
What a match it turned out to be! The first ODI between India and New Zealand at Hyderabad was a cracker of a match that could have gone either way. In the end, the Indians held their nerves in the face of a calculated assault by Michael Bracewell (the IPL franchisees must be ruing not picking him up especially as his base price was just Rs 1 cr) and won the high-scoring match by just 12 runs.
Betting first after winning the toss, India ran up a massive 349 for 8 (it could have been higher if Suryakumar Yadav, who was involved in a soft dismissal against the run of play, had stayed a little longer) riding on a superlative double century by the immensely talented Shubman Gill. Gill is in the form of his life and displayed tremendous application and grit to open the batting and stay almost till the end to craft a well-paced innings of 208 runs off just 149 balls. The innings was studded with 19 fours and 9 towering sixes. Although Rohit Sharma (34), Yadav (31) and Hardik Pandya (28) got starts, they could not get into top gear like Gill.
When New Zealand batted, the Indian bowlers kept things tight and reduced them to 131 for 6 in the 29th over. It seemed that India would cruise to a comfortable win. But things changed quickly as Michael Bracewell, in partnership with a doughty Mitchell Santner, launched a calculated assault on the Indian bowling which left the team and the spectators dazed. From 131, the duo took the score to 293, a partnership of 162 runs in just under 15 overs. When India's most penetrative bowler Md Siraj (4 for 46) got Santner out, Bracewell was not finished. He continued in the same fashion and brought New Zealand close to victory but it was just not their day. Bracewell's 140 in just 78 balls with 12 fours and 10 huge sixes was an outstanding innings and he was unlucky to end up on the losing side.
