New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner echoed his India counterpart Hardik Pandya's assessment of the pitch served for the first T20I in Ranchi, saying they were shocked after the Kiwis defeated the hosts by 21 runs on Friday (January 27).
Invited to bat first, the visitors rode on half-centuries from Daryl Mitchell (59* off 30 balls) and Devon Conway (52 off 35 balls) to post 176/6 on the board. Off-spinner Washington Sundar was the stand-out bowler for India, claiming two wickets by conceding 22 runs in his four overs.
In reply, India’s innings was restricted to 155/9 in 20 overs. While the likes of Suryakumar Yadav (47 off 34 balls) and Sundar (50 off 28 balls) produced good knocks, they couldn’t take the home team over the line.
After the game, Indian captain Hardik Pandya said they were caught off guard by the turn on offer on the Ranchi pitch.
Santner agreed with Pandya and said everyone was a bit shocked by how much it spun in the second innings of the game.
"It was a bit of a shock for everyone involved, how much it kinda spun in the second innings. But it was a great game and it was pretty tight at the end, we saw a lot of runs in the ODI series and it was nice to see the ball spin a bit more. I don't think we were ever safe, 170-odd was nice with Daryl hitting a couple over and he batted extremely well, we knew we had a sniff with 180,” Santner said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
In the chase, the Black Caps reduced the Men in Blue to 15/3 inside the powerplay and Santner said it was nice to pick some wickets early on.
“It was nice to chip away some wickets in the powerplay and we had troubled doing that in the ODIs. At the toss we were going to bowl because we know chasing is so good over here and especially with the dew. That's always the challenge. You don't want to be seen doing the easy overs and stuff like that. We knew it was spinning in the powerplay and it was nice to chip one out," he added.
With this victory, New Zealand took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. The second T20I will be played in Lucknow on Sunday (January 29).
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
