India beat New Zealand in 1st ODI at Napier

Posted by on Mar 4, 2009 in Cricket

India showed its all round capabilities in the 1st ODI at the McLean Park in Napier to crush the Kiwis by 53 runs. The margin of defeat that they inflicted looks a bit on the lower side as the match was truncated due to rain interruptions. It was no doubt a trouncing for the Black Caps from the mighty Indians.

MS Dhoni top scored for India with an unbeaten 84 (from 89 balls with 6 fours), an innings that was more of a sheet anchor’s role. The Indian Skipper supported the free stroking Virender Sehwag (77 from 56 balls with 11 fours and a six) and Suresh Raina (66 from 39 balls with 5 fours and 4 sixes) who were at their destructive best. The Indians closed their innings at 273 for 4 in the allotted 38 overs. There was a rain break in the 5th over of the innings which resulted in the reduction of the overs. The New Zealand bowling was hopeless to say the least, they were some terrible full tosses dished out by the fast bowlers. Skipper Daniel Vettori was given some special treatment by the young Suresh Raina.

The Kiwis were stifled by some beautiful swing bowling from Praveen Kumar who went onto remove the dangerous Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder early. The New Zealand innings went absolutely nowhere although there was a sort of a fightback from Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor. However with the required run rate always mounting up, it was just too tough a task for the batting side. There was another rain break in the match, luckily for India they had bowled out more than 20 overs by then and NZ was way behind the D/L target.

When play resumed again, New Zealand’s target just blew up to a much more difficult one at 216 from 28 overs! They resumed play at 111 for 4 in the 21st over. The Kiwis could only end up with 162 for 9 at the end of the 28th over. As many as four wickets fell in the space of five balls during the passage after the rain break. Harbhajan Singh who was brought into the attack very late picked up three wickets in his four overs with his clever doosras. The top scorer for the Kiwis was Martin Guptill who made 64 from 70 balls. The Man of the Match was given to the Indian Captain.

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