New Zealand cause India upset

Cricket365
March 18, 2016

New Zealand delivered an upset with a 47 run victory against hosts India in the opening match of the ICC World Twenty20 in Nagpur on Tuesday.

When the tournament got underway, India were among the firm favourites to win the whole shebang at 3/1. This loss, however, has seen betting markets – among them 888sport.com%u200B – push larger odds like 5/1 and beyond.

After setting India a lowly total of 127 for victory, the cards were stacked against New Zealand winning in front of a passionate home crowd at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium.

The Indian batsmen crumbled to the opposition spin attack as they were bowled out and lost in their lowest runs total chase in T20 cricket.

New Zealand posted a total of 126 runs for seven wickets in their allotted 20 overs after winning the toss and opting to bat first.

Their bowlers responded emphatically as Mitchell Satner grabbed four wickets for 11 runs while Ish Sodhi had three wickets for 18 runs to help bowl out India for 79 runs in 18.1 overs.

The Black Caps in their innings got off to a shaky start after losing wickets in the first two overs when Martin Guptill was caught lbw by Ravichandran Ashwin while Colin Munro was caught out by Hardik Pandya off the bowling of Ashish Nehra.

The middle order looked to stabilize the innings but India's bowlers managed keep the score-box from getting out of hand.

Although the wickets did not come at irregular intervals, the Indian bowlers were never frustrated as they kept things tight.

Corey Anderson top scored for the Black Caps with 34 runs, while Ross Taylor and Mitchell Santner posted 10 and 18 runs respectively.

With their best fast bowlers Trent Boult and Tim Southee having been left out of the match, New Zealand were hoping that their spin bowling would get them out of the tight spot.

It took New Zealand 17 overs to reach the landmark of 100 runs although they had wickets in hand during the low scoring innings.

But in the end it was more than enough as India imploded during their chase as eight of their batsmen failed to score more than five runs individually.