JAIPUR: Suryakumar Yadav struck a blistering half-century as India held on to beat New Zealand by five wickets in the first of three Twenty20s in Jaipur on Wednesday and get Rahul Dravid’s reign as head coach off to a winning start.

Chasing 165, India clinched victory with two balls to spare thanks to a career-best 62 from Yadav, who played some classy strokes after captain Rohit Sharma (48) and KL Rahul (15) had given the hosts a fine start with a 50-run opening stand.

New Zealand, beaten by Australia in the T20 World Cup final on Sunday, fought back with three quick wickets but Rishabh Pant (17 not out) held his nerve to guide India home.

“It didn’t come as easy... so great learning for the guys, to understand what needs to be done, not about power-hitting all the time. A good game for us, missing a few players, opportunity to other guys to show their ability,” Rohit said after India’s first game since their disappointing failure to reach the T20 World Cup semi-finals.

New Zealand skipper Tim Southee tried to take positives from the loss.

“You want to come out on the right side of close ones... but a game of fine margins,” he said. “The way we started with the ball wasn’t what we wanted, did well to claw it back in the middle, took it deep and to the last over was a positive.”

Earlier, Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled Daryl Mitchell with an in-swinger in the first over but New Zealand weathered that early blow as Martin Guptill and Mark Chapman added 109 runs for the second wicket to help the visitors to 164-6.

Chapman led the assault with a 50-ball 63 while Guptill (70) held the innings together, smashing three fours and four sixes for his first T20 fifty against India.

There were no other contributions of note as the Indian attack, led by Bhuvneshwar (2-24) and Ravichandran Ashwin (2-23), restricted the Kiwis with smart bowling in the second half of the innings.

The second game of the series is in Ranchi on Friday.

Scoreboard

NEW ZEALAND:

M. Guptill c Iyer b Chahar 70

D. Mitchell b Kumar 0

M. Chapman b Ashwin 63

G. Phillips lbw Ashwin 0

T. Seifert c Yadav b Kumar 12

R. Ravindra b Siraj 7

M. Santner not out 4

T. Southee not out 0

EXTRAS: (B-2, LB-3, W-3) 8

TOTAL: (for six wkts, 20 overs) 164

FALL OF WKTS: 1-1, 2-110, 3-110, 4-150, 5-153, 6-162.

DID NOT BAT: T. Astle, L. Ferguson, T. Boult.

BOWLING: Kumar 4-0-24-2 (1w), Chahar 4-0-42-1, Siraj 4-0-39-1 (1w), Ashwin 4-0-23-2, Patel 4-0-31-0 (1w).

INDIA:

L. Rahul c Chapman b Santner 15

R. Sharma c Ravindra b Boult 48

S. Yadav b Boult 62

R. Pant not out 17

S. Iyer c Boult b Southee 5

V. Iyer c Ravindra b Mitchell 4

A. Patel not out 1

EXTRAS: (LB-7, W-7) 14

TOTAL: (for five wkts, 19.4 overs) 166

FALL OF WKTS: 1-50, 2-109, 3-144, 4-155, 5-160.

DID NOT BAT: R. Ashwin, B. Kumar, D. Chahar, Mohammad Siraj.

BOWLING: Southee 4-0-40-1 (1w), Boult 4-0-31-2 (1w), Ferguson 4-0-24-0 (2w), Santner 4-0-19-1, Astle 3-0-34-0 (1w), Mitchell 0.4-0-11-1 (2w).

RESULT: India won by five wickets.

UMPIRES: Karumanaseri Ananthapadmanabhan and Virender Sharma (both India).

TV UMPIRE: Anil Chaudhary (India).

MATCH REFEREE: Manu Nayyar (India).

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2021