T20 World Cup 2021: The Men in Blues have nearly summed up their T20 World Cup 2021 campaign in just its very second match against New Zealand as the World Cup hopes of the team are now hanged by a wire as India is virtually knocked out of the tournament.
Clearly regarded as the favourites to win the elite tournament, India disappointed millions of its fans and the experts all around the world as they secured two defeats in two games to put themselves on the verge of elimination. Rightly said, it’s not the end of the tournament, but surely it is the end of that confidence which Indian fans collected after the horrifying 10-wickets defeat against Pakistan.
The star-studded team India proved everyone wrong in their permutation and combinations as two in tow losses is not something which India has incurred in the recent ICC World Cups. Now the only hope for India remains is to pray for other teams’ losses and wins in order to somehow sneak in for the semi-finals of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
New Zealand in pursuit of a below modest total against India, yesterday, went over the line without any scoreboard pressure and continued its dominance against extraordinary India in the ICC tournaments. The Kiwi bowlers didn’t allow Indian batters to free their arms and kept on putting up the pressure.
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Expectedly, the toss had huge importance and Kane Williamson got it right and forced India to bat first. India did a small shuffle at the top order where Rohit Sharma was pushed to number three with Ishan Kishan making his way out with KL Rahul.
Left-arm pacer Trent Boult did his job by picking Ishan Kishan to a poor score in the third over and in the final over the powerplay, Tim Southee trapped KL Rahul as the delivery took an aerial root to fetch his wicket.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were also sent back to the dressing room after a while and India slipped down to an uncomfortable position against New Zealand. All-rounder Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja tried to pull back the game a little bit, however, they could only manage to amass 23 and 26 respectively.
Team India after the completion of 20 overs totalled just 110 runs in the loss of seven wickets.
To take the Kiwis home, Daryl Mitchell scored the bulk of runs (49 from 35). Kane Williamson did his part with an unbeaten 33 from 31 deliveries. Martin Guptil scored 20 runs while Devon Conway returned after an unbeaten 2.
New Zealand finished the match inside 15 overs and nearly ended India’s World Cup hopes.
Team India now has two losses in two matches and have a poor net run rate of -1.609. The comeback from this situation looks like a tough task for the Indians as they will now show up for the match against Afghanistan, Namibia and Scotland.
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