‘Kya karun itne bilateral wins ka’- Says Twitter as India win 2nd ODI as well as the series against New Zealand

8) India and New Zealand locked horns in the 2nd ODI at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in Raipur. The Men in Blue had won the last match on the back of Shubman Gill but would have hoped to eliminate their bowling issues in this one.

As for New Zealand, this game came in as an opportunity to bring their all-round game up to the mark in a World Cup year. After Rohit Sharma won the toss and he elected to bowl, Indian bowlers took the game by the scruff of the neck and brought Kiwi top-order batting to its knees.

In just 10.5 overs, New Zealand found themselves lingering at 15/5 as Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj ran through New Zealand’s batting. Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur also had their say in the visiting team’s misery as they dismissed Devon Conway (7) and Tom Latham (1) in quick succession.

Glenn Philips (36) and Michael Bracewell (22) strung up a brave partnership in the middle but could not bring out New Zealand out of a tricky situation. In the end, the Latham-led side could only muster 109 runs at the board.

India came into the run chase quite confident of an easy chase. Rohit Sharma (51) and Shubman Gill (40*) however dealt with caution on a pitch that still produced difficult balls from time to time. After the Indian captain got out it came down to Virat Kohli to take India home. The in-form batter however could not close down the game as he got stumped at 11. In the end, it was two young batters Gill and Ishan Kishan (8) who took India across the finish line- foreshadowing India’s move into a newer generation. India won the match by 8 wickets as well as the 3-match ODI series by 2-0.

Twitter however wasn’t much impressed with India’s yet another win in a bilateral series at home: