The Indian innings have come to an end in the first ODI against New Zealand and it was Shreyas Iyer’s power-packed century that led the Men in Blue to a mammoth total of 347 on the scoreboard in Hamilton.
The match started with Kiwis winning the toss and elected to field first, a decision that they would regret in the coming time. Two debutants, Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal opened the innings for India and started cautiously. Tim Southee bowled some really wonderful deliveries in the first seven overs of the game and did not give many chances to the openers to free their arms.
Shaw and Agarwal took chances on other bowlers like Hamish Bennett to score most of their runs. The duo completed a 50-run stand in their first-ever opening partnership. The Black Caps needed a breakthrough and it was Colin de Grandhomme who came to the rescue. De Grandhomme picked up Shaw’s wicket at the score of 20 while Agarwal lost his wicket just 4 runs of Shaw’s dismissal.
After their dismissal, Indian skipper Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer started to build the Indian innings. Iyer took some time to open his account while Kohli was striking the ball cleanly from the very first delivery. They both played some really brilliant shots and did not any Kiwi bowler put pressure on them. In the process, he scored his 58th half-century before getting dismissed by an amazing googly from leg-spinner Ish Sodhi.
The pair stitched a crucial 102-run stand for the third wicket.
On the other hand, Iyer was getting confident with each over passing by. India’s new wicketkeeper-batsman KL Rahul gave him the much-needed assistance. Both the batsman took the Kiwi bowling attack head-on and scored runs all around the park. Iyer scored his maiden ODI hundred to cement his place in the current Indian squad. The batsman continued his golden run in white-ball cricket and scored 103 runs off 107 balls before getting out. Till then, most of the work was done. India had already put 292 on the board at that time.
Rahul and Iyer had a partnership of 132 runs for the fourth wicket.
Rahul continued his onslaught with Kedar Jadhav getting into the mix with a valuable cameo of 26 runs off just 15 balls. The Men in Blue ended their innings with a score of 347 for the loss of 4 wickets in 50 overs.
Tim Southee gave away 85 runs in his 10 overs and picked up 2 wickets. After a poor show in the T20I series, Southee could not redeem himself in the first ODI too. Hamish Bennett was also quite expensive as he gave away 77 runs in his quota of 10 overs.
New Zealand requires 348 runs to win in 50 overs.
Score:
INDIA 347/4 (Shreyas Iyer 103, KL Rahul 88; Tim Southee 2/85)
