New Delhi: Shubman Gill’s ton and Indian bowlers dismissing the Blackcaps for 66, helped India to seal the series 2-1 and maintain their unbeaten record at home. Following Gill’s cracking performance, India scored a massive total of 234 and Hardik Pandya’s four wicket haul along with the efforts from the bowling attack powered the hosts to a 168-run victory.
Gill scored 126* off just 63 balls and has ticked the boxes of a double century in ODIs and a century in T20Is. He hit 12 fours and 7 sixes to score his first T20I ton and the highest ever individual T20I score by an Indian batter.
After Ishan Kishan’s early dismissal, Gill and Rahul Tripathi built an 80-run partnership to get India back on track. Tripathi started slow but took off in style to finish his inning at a strike rate of 200 with 44 off 22 deliveries, hitting 4 fours and 3 sixes.
Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya also showed their power-hitting skills on a bouncy, batting friendly turf. They had explosive cameos, scoring 24 off 13 and 30 off 17 respectively.
New Zealand lost half of their batters in the powerplay with Hardik Pandya and Arshdeep Singh picking two each and Umran Malik dismissing the danger man Michael Bracewell. Suryakumar Yadav took two superb catches in the slip to help Pandya pick early wickets.
Indian pacers had a joy bowling in Ahmedabad as Shivam Mavi also picked two wickets and Umran ended the affairs by dismissing Daryl Mitchell.
Mitchell was the only one looking good with the bat as well as the ball. He came in to bowl the last over and gave only six runs and got Pandya out, and with the bat, he contributed 35 off 25 in a losing cause.
