The Indian team started their tour of New Zealand with the first of the five T20I matches being played at Eden Park, Auckland. Indian captain Virat Kohli won the toss and chose to bowl first. New Zealand gave a T20I debut to fast bowler Hamish Bennett.
New Zealand got a brilliant start with 80 runs in first 8 overs with Guptill making 30 in 19 balls and Munro hitting 59 in 42 balls with 2 sixes and 6 fours. The momentum continued with Kane Williamson (51 with 4 fours and 3 sixes) and Ross Taylor (54* with 3 fours and 3 sixes) as the Black Caps put up 203/5 in 20 overs. Jasprit Bumrah was the pick of bowlers with 1/31 in 4 overs for India.
In the chase, Rohit Sharma fell for 7 runs, but Virat Kohli (45 with 3 fours and 1 six) and KL Rahul (56 with 4 fours and 3 sixes) added 99 runs for the second wicket. But both fell in short intervals of each other, and then Shivam Dube fell for 13, leaving India 142/4 in the 14th over. Guptill took an amazing diving catch to send Kohli back to put India on the back foot.
Its when Shreyas Iyer took charge and slammed an amazing 58*in 29 balls with 5 fours and 3 sixes and with the help of Manish Pandey (14*), took the Indian team to the victory with one over to spare, hitting a six to get home, with 6 wickets in hand. India went 1-0 up in the 5-match series.
Cricket fraternity was elated with the batting efforts of Kohli, Rahul, and Iyer and showered praise on the victorious Indian team on Twitter and the star players.
Here are the tweets:
