McCullum fifty takes New Zealand to win by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Scorecard:	New Zealand v India
Player:	BB McCullum, MJ Guptill, SK Raina, V Sehwag
Event:	India in New Zealand 2008/09

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DateLine: 25th February 2009

 

New Zealand won the first match of the T20 two match series and in the process putting pressure on India to win the next match to level the series. Chasing 163 to win in their alloted 20 overs New Zealand completed the chase midway in the 18th over to win the contest. For New Zealand McCullum scored an unbeaten 56 and he was well supported by the rest of the batsmen.

 

Virender Sehwag opened his tour in stunning fashion, dispatching his first three balls over the boundary, to get India off to a blazing start but the visitors were eventually restricted to 162 for 7 by a resilient New Zealand attack. It rained sixes at the AMI Stadium as the Indian batsmen came out swinging but nobody stayed at the crease long enough to cause lasting damage. It was left to Suresh Raina, who remained unbeaten on 61, to give his team a defendable target after they had slumped to 101 for 7.

 

Sehwag tucked in immediately against Tim Southee, hitting his first two over the fine-leg boundary and the third flatter over square leg. India's adrenalin rush, however, was short lived. Gautam Gambhir was the first to perish, losing his middle stump to Iain O'Brien while swinging across the line. The rest of the top-order batsmen also fell trying to clear the short square boundaries. O'Brien flattened Sehwag's leg stump after he made room to swing over the on side. Rohit Sharma was dismissed trying to clip the ball to midwicket but in the end getting a thick leading edge which ballooned to Brendon McCullum. Yuvraj Singh too was trapped lbw to a quicker one from Daniel Vettori, while moving across his stumps.

 

Yusuf Pathan hammered a hat trick of sixes but was caught while going for the fourth. The ball traveled flatter towards Jacob Oram at long-on who took the catch, pedaled backwards, quickly lobbed the ball in the air before going over the rope and caught it once again after he came back into play. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Irfan Pathan failed to support Raina, and their dismissals left India struggling at 101 for 7. Raina received late support from Harbhajan Singh, who hit consecutive fours off Southee in the final over. India settled for 162 but it could have been a different story had the top order contributed more.

 

New Zealand started off disastrously when Ishant Sharma trapped Ryder before his stumps and could have had Guptill the next ball but the umpire negated the leg before appeal. Guptill then opened up and got the innings off to a flyer with some bold shots all around the park. Irfan was dismissed out of the attack when he was taken for 18 runs in his opening over and Dhoni as a result turned to his premier spinner and he did not disappoint by picking out the dangerous Guptill but then Taylor picked up from where Guptill left.

 

The pair of McCullum and Taylor did not offer any respite to the Indian captain as they very cleverly rotated the strike and also struck some bold shots. Irfan in particular did not have a day that he will remember as he was repeatedly treated with disdain. It took the experience of Zaheer Khan to dismiss Taylor and by then the Kiwis were way ahead of India. Though Harbhajan bowled well to put brakes on the scoring Oram and McCullum did not lose the plot and they finished off the innings in a flourish.