New Zealand v India: 1st ODI, Napier

New Zealand:
MJ Guptill, JD Ryder, KS Williamson, LRPL Taylor, BB McCullum*, CJ Anderson, L Ronchi†, NL McCullum, TG Southee, AF Milne, MJ McClenaghan

India:
S Dhawan, RG Sharma, V Kohli, SK Raina, AM Rahane, MS Dhoni*†, RA Jadeja, R Ashwin, B Kumar, I Sharma, Mohammed Shami

India won the toss and elected to field

NZ currently 97/2 after 22 overs.

Ryder was out to a silly attempt at a ramp shot in the 4th over off the bowling of Shami and he also claimed the wicket of Guptil who edged a wider delivery to Ashwin in the slips.

Fine conditions at McLean Park... looks very good for batting. A little slow off the pitch and good value for shots in the outfield.

Williamson gets his 50, Taylor on 37.
NZ are 122/2 after 28 overs now.

NZ making steady progress.
Taylor gets his 50 now. Williamson on 66.
NZ 147/2 after 32 overs.

Williamson holes out to Rahane off the bowling of Jadeja for 71. 153/3 at that stage.

McCullum already showing some intent to score quickly.
171/3 after 36 overs now.

Now Taylor edges one to MS Dhoni and is out having scored 55 runs.

NZ 171/4

Superb catch from Dhoni to dismiss McCullum who slashed at it pretty hard off the bowling of Kumar.

217/5 after 43 overs.

This Anderson bloke has some serious pwer in him, that's two sixes on the roof now

Good morning mate.
Yeah, he sure can hit them. They should be aiming for around 300 run total.
Ronchi clears the ropes too now... just.

NZ 242/5 in the 44th over.
(it's hard following 2 matches on at the same time)

Not sure about Corey Anderson TBH. 

He's got power but this far he's bullied a woeful Windies bowling attack and whilst the Indian attack is disciplined, it's pretty much medium pace. 

Anderson is aided by shockingly short boundaries in New Zealand. And before you say it, he's hitting it miles, he knows mishits will go for 6 on these outfields. 

He gets sorted out by proper fast bowling.

Morning LB, gerry, it starts somwhere mate.

Biltong wrote:Morning LB, gerry, it starts somwhere mate.

Our boy Richard Levi looked a million bucks batting in New Zealand Biltong, look where his is now...

Gerry will never have anything good to say about anyone called Anderson   

alfie wrote:Gerry will never have anything good to say about anyone called Anderson   

It's nothing to do with what he's called. 

He needs to score this blistering innings on normal sized grounds. Eg England, Australia or South Africa.

It was a joke , Gerry.

Agree it is too early to salute the New Superbat : but he has made a decent start. Will be interesting to see him next year in the World Cup.

Gerry SA wrote:

alfie wrote:Gerry will never have anything good to say about anyone called Anderson   

It's nothing to do with what he's called. 

He needs to score this blistering innings on normal sized grounds. Eg England, Australia or South Africa.

Maybe he will get his chance one day. He's making a decent contribution today regardless.

Couple of good overs for India here

So, NZ score 292/7 after their 50 overs.

Maybe short of a very good total (I seem to remember 330+ runs in previous years was gettable on this ground) but let's see how the Kiwi bowlers fare.

Its a good score from New Zealand. Williamson, Taylor and Anderson played very well, B Mac and Ronchi offered good support. Shami bowled very well, so did Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Ishant Sharma was useless as ever.
India have to survive the first 10 overs without much damage, then the chase should be on.
LB, by the way could you change this thread into a tour thread, I doubt whether we'll get a lot of comments on a game-to-game basis.

so far the game has exposed the same trend and weakness that India demonstrated in SA.

shami gets quick wickets......India is doing good in curtialing the opposition in first 20.....Dhoni takes foot of the pedal.......and relaxes.......still India is OK until 30 overs...then the middel order of opponents starts taking over and wheels come off in the last 10..........ending up near 300.

Now SA had the pitches and bowling to make Indian batting struggle.....NZ is probably one level lower in bowling and India batsmen are coming fresh off practise in more hostile conditions.....so I would expect a better chase.....293 is still a big ask

sharma continues to get exposed in overseas conditions.....has put the team under immense pressure with his "tortoising and then throwing it away"

Surely Kohli will get the scoreboard ticking over a little better now.

India 38/1 after 9.

Dhawan looking good......when he starts getting his cover drive and pulls right......is the indicator he is good.
Kohli playing his usual inning

corey anderson's dibbly dobbly medium pace has trigered a collapse

134/4 now with just over 20 overs to go. 159 runs needed for India to win.

Dhoni at the crease... averaging 103 at a S/R of 90 odd in this situation.  

100 up for Kohli... batting very well as usual.

93 runs required off 66 balls for India.

Make that 86 runs needed now a single from Kohli and a long flat 6 from MS.

2 two wickets from McClenaghan. First, the important wicket of Dhoni and just now Jadeja.

224/6 after 43 overs. 63 runs required off 41 balls... as Kohli belts a 6.

McClenaghan strikes again... a full toss mistimed by Kohli which went straight to Ryder who doesn't drop it this time.

Virat Kohli gone for a splendid 123 off 111 balls.

Suicidal call for a run from Kumar... and he gets run out.

247/8 now after 46 overs.

Southee takes a screamer to get rid of Ashwin.

India 263/9

India all out for 268... Sharma cleaned bowled by Southee.

NZ win the 1st ODI by 24 runs.

well India's problems overseas exposed again:

1) Losing control when bolwing from around mid innings
2) and not having a stable Nos 4 and 5

raina will come under scrutiny.

Ashwin is struggling to hold his place and should be the one in next game to make room for Binny

Nohit Sharma is well and truly back. Raina is a f**king disgrace, as are Ishant and Ashwin.

It's ok though. Under a new proposal any defeat by India by exactly 24 runs which happens on the 19th of any month will automatically be overturned, and corrected to an Indian win by 200 runs.

A BCCI spokesman was heard to comment: "India bring in 99.9% of the revenue for the ICC. Losing matches is contrary to India's interests, and hence to cricket's interests as a global sport. A match being declared as a defeat under those circumstances is an unacceptable affront to India's dignity, and as such it is only right the result be overturned."

An NZCB spokesman commented: "it is not my place to comment on what are confidential proposals. I can confirm that no proposals are being put forward which would damage the NZCB's interests in any way. I would like to apologise to the BCCI for the recent result, which was a travesty of the natural order of things, and would assure them that we shall do our utmost to ensure it won't happen again. We hope the Indian delegation will accept this show of good faith and agree to finish the current tour, and consider returning at some future date."

Mike Selig wrote:It's ok though. Under a new proposal any defeat by India by exactly 24 runs which happens on the 19th of any month will automatically be overturned, and corrected to an Indian win by 200 runs.

A BCCI spokesman was heard to comment: "India bring in 99.9% of the revenue for the ICC. Losing matches is contrary to India's interests, and hence to cricket's interests as a global sport. A match being declared as a defeat under those circumstances is an unacceptable affront to India's dignity, and as such it is only right the result be overturned."

An NZCB spokesman commented: "it is not my place to comment on what are confidential proposals. I can confirm that no proposals are being put forward which would damage the NZCB's interests in any way. I would like to apologise to the BCCI for the recent result, which was a travesty of the natural order of things, and would assure them that we shall do our utmost to ensure it won't happen again. We hope the Indian delegation will accept this show of good faith and agree to finish the current tour, and consider returning at some future date."

Good one Mike!.

Its official, Rohit Sharma's 11 month blip is over and he's back to his usual self. There were signs in South Africa that Sharma was going back to what he was doing for 5 years in his career despite a serious blip in 2013 where he was even forced to score a couple of test hundreds. But he has now gone back to basics and added a new string to his game. In 2013 as an ODI opener, before the Australian series, Sharma was able to consume a number of balls but ended up scoring a middling knock between 40 to 60. He has now corrected this major flaw in his game and found ways to spend considerable time at the wicket for single figure scores.
What a waste!.

Ishant Sharma's ODI year of the year didn't happen in this game and he was his usual garbage self. Hopefully his Good ODI of the Year won't strike in the next game so that the team would carry the deadweight for the entire year.

Ravichandran Ashwin failed to pick up wickets in the middle order though his overall economy rate was not bad. But Ashwin's performances now need to come under some serious scrutiny.

Since the start of the SA tour, Ashwin has taken 1 wicket in 80 overs (42 Test overs, 38 in ODIs). If this was Harbhajan, msp would've probably burnt him alive.

msp83 wrote:Its official, Rohit Sharma's 11 month blip is over and he's back to his usual self. There were signs in South Africa that Sharma was going back to what he was doing for 5 years in his career despite a serious blip in 2013 where he was even forced to score a couple of test hundreds. But he has now gone back to basics and added a new string to his game. In 2013 as an ODI opener, before the Australian series, Sharma was able to consume a number of balls but ended up scoring a middling knock between 40 to 60. He has now corrected this major flaw in his game and found ways to spend considerable time at the wicket for single figure scores.
What a waste!.

Haha, nice one!

No comments on Raina's umpteenth embarassing dismissal to the short ball?

ShankyCricket wrote:No comments on Raina's umpteenth embarassing dismissal to the short ball?

In the case of Rohit and Ishant, I am hopeful that the management will take note at least after a year of non-performance. But not so with Raina. They've taken Binny in there, I am not all that convinced about him, but if Raina continues to flounder, it'll be good if they consider Rayudu or him in the lineup.
Ashwin has certainly bowled badly, but that is no automatic pass for Harbhajan who stayed in the side despite 3 years of inconsistency. The guy is 34, his fitness is not where it should be, and although this domestic season has been a big improvement over the last 2 ones, the benchmark is so low and he was outbowled by Parwez Rasool in the last Ranji game.

Think they should go in with Jadeja as the only spinner, Deadweight or Raina can bowl some parttime spin, and Kohli can chip in with an over or 2 of slow medium. They should play Varun Aaron or Ishwar Pandey in place of Ashwin. Don't think Binny is good enough for 10 over spells regularly.

So you still want Raina in the ODI team despite his woeful record outside Asia and woeful recent performances?

I'm not saying bring back Harbhajan. Just pointing out the hypocrisy. Ashwin seems to cop far less criticism even though his efforts outside Asia are worse than Bhajji at its absolute worst. If its a choice between those 2, surely Bhajji must be picked? Did he ever go 80 overs taking 1 wicket and leaking runs at that? Harbhajan, at his worst, was at least economical.

ShankyCricket wrote:So you still want Raina in the ODI team despite his woeful record outside Asia and woeful recent performances?

Raina has not only been struggling away from home, he had a pretty poor series against the Australians as he could not convert a single start in there. I would like to see someone else given a go there, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
Perhaps Pujara for deadweight, Rayudu for Raina, and you, me or anyone else for Ishant!........

I am very sure Harbhajan will be just as bad as Ashwin with the 4 fielder stuff and the 2 new balls. He wasn't much better despite all the experience and management support ones he hit his inconsistent patch.......

And between the 2 of them, I'd still go for Ashwin, at least for now. But if Ashwin continues the way he's doing at the moment, I would like to look at Rasool or even Amit Mishra. Harbhajan, like Sehwag, is someone whom we have to thank for all that he did for Indian cricket with Did being the operational word....... Certainly in tests at least....... Perhaps he could still make a comeback in T-20Is.

So you still want to give Ashwin a longer rope? Whats wrong with giving Mishra a run now, if not Bhajji?

In New Zealand, I would actually like them to go in with the additional seamer in place of Ashwin. Pandey for Ishant, Aaron for Ashwin.......