Shami, Kohli Star As India End 20-Year Jinx Against New Zealand in World Cup, Take Top Spot
Riding on a sensational fifer (5/54) from Mohammed Shami and Virat Kohli’s brilliant fifty (95 off 104), India beat New Zealand by four wickets in an exciting ODI World Cup 2023 match at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala on Sunday.
This was India’s fifth win from the same number of matches and it helped the hosts climb to the top in the ten-team points table.
With this, India also brought an end to their two-decade-long winless streak against New Zealand in World Cups irrespective of the format. They won against New Zealand for the first time since the 2003 World Cup.
Chasing a target of 274 for victory, India’s openers Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill got off to a flier with another excellent opening partnership. The pair, who mostly dealt in boundaries, added 71 runs for the first wicket before Lockie Ferguson dismissed Rohit for 46(40). Shortly after Ferguson also removed Gill for 26(31).
Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer then added 52 runs for the third wicket before Trent Boult got rid of Iyer for 33(29) to keep the game alive for New Zealand. KL Rahul then joined the proceedings and added a 50-plus stand with Kohli to take India forward.
But a topsy-turvy match took another twist when KL Rahul departed for 27, leaving India down to their last recognised batters with plenty of work still to do in the chase. Suryakumar Yadav, who was making his World Cup debut, too couldn’t do much as a mix-up with Kohli ended his innings prematurely when he was run out for 2.
New Zealand had a chance of pulling off things but Kohli and Jadeja combined to settle the growing nerves and stayed on top of the required rate. Kohli had the chance to go for his century after he attacked Boult to move into the ninety.
However, Kohli missed out on a 49th ODI ton when he was well caught by Glenn Phillips while going for the big shot. Very soon, Jadeja hit the winning boundary to leave India with a winning record of five wins from five.
Earlier, Shami’s 5-54 in his first World Cup 2023 game, helped India trigger the late collapse and New Zealand to 273 despite Daryl Mitchell’s career-best 130.
Brief scores:
New Zealand 273 all out in 50 overs (Daryl Mitchell 130, Rachin Ravindra 75; Mohammed Shami 5-54, Kuldeep Yadav 2-73) lost to India 274/6 in 48 overs (Virat Kohli 95, Rohit Sharma 46; Lockie Ferguson 2-63) by 4 wickets