New Zealand batter Nick Kelly is hoping for Indian batting stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s early dismissals during the second ODI at the Niranjan Shah Stadium, Rajkot on Wednesday (January 14).
India defeated New Zealand by four wickets in ODI series opener in Vadodara on Sunday (January 11) to gain a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Chasing 301 to win, the Men in Blue lost Rohit for 26 runs but Kohli added 118 runs for the second wicket with skipper Shubman Gill to put the hosts in driver’s seat.
While Gill fell after scoring 56 off 71 balls, Kohli appeared on course for a record-extending 54th ODI century at the BCA Stadium before Kyle Jamieson dismissed him on 93 off 91 balls. His wicket also broke the 77-run partnership with Shreyas Iyer (49 off 47).
After Kohli and Iyer’s dismissals in quick succession, KL Rahul (29* off 21) and Harshit Rana (29 off 23) chipped in with handy contributions to take India over the line with an over to spare.
"Any time you get to come up against some of the world's best, it's obviously very exciting from a cricket fan's point of view. But I think the boys who are out there will be very excited. And hopefully they don't score too many runs," Kelly told reporters on the eve of the second ODI.
The 32-year-old is hoping to have a cracking game in Rajkot after the first ODI went down to the wire.
"Yeah, obviously very exciting. The game a couple of days ago was very, very close. So it was good to get here today. And, you know, beautiful practice wicket. So hopefully another cracking game tomorrow."
"Obviously, it was a cracking game. You know, at the end there it got very, very tight. Hopefully, you know, we've had a lot of chats over the last 24 to 48 hours. So hopefully tomorrow we can go out there and get the win and make it 1-1," Kelly added.
India Squad: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill(c), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul(w), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, Ayush Badoni, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel.
New Zealand Squad: Devon Conway, Henry Nicholls, Will Young, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Hay(w), Michael Bracewell(c), Zakary Foulkes, Kristian Clarke, Kyle Jamieson, Adithya Ashok, Jayden Lennox, Nick Kelly, Josh Clarkson, Michael Rae.
(With ANI Inputs)
