New Delhi: After Rohit Sharma (31-ball 56) and Ishan Kishan (21-ball 29) starred with the bat, Axar Patel (3 wickets for 9 runs) spun a web around the Kiwi batters to help India beat New Zealand by 73 runs in the third and final T20 International to attain a clean sweep over the visitors at Kolkata's iconic Eden Garden Stadium on Sunday. The hosts won the series opener by 5 wickets. After this, in the second T20 match played in Ranchi, India defeated New Zealand by 7 wickets to seal the series. Martin Guptill (36-ball 51) scored the maximum runs for his team but his hard-fought fifty went in vain.
Earlier, India won the toss and decided to bat first to test its batting strength on a pitch where usually a team after winning the toss opts to bowl first due to the 'dew factor'. After openers Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan helped India get off to a dream start, bowler Deepak Chahar (8-ball 21) chipped in with a fiery cameo to power team India to a formidable 1st innings total i.e 184/7.
New Zealand had managed to pull themselves back into the game by taking some quick wickets. At one point in the game, the Men in Blue were reduced to 103/4 but young batters Venkatesh Iyer and Shreyas Iyer came up with a decent stand to steady the innings.
Indian bowlers Harshal Patel and Deepak Chahar hammered some big strokes towards the end of India's innings to stop Kiwis from gaining momentum ahead of the big chase on a batting-friendly pitch at Kolkata.
Team India made two changes against Black Caps. KL Rahul and Ravichandran Ashwin were benched as Ishan Kishan and Yuzvendra Chahal replaced them in India's playing XI.
Teams:
New Zealand (Playing XI): Martin Guptill, Daryl Mitchell, Mark Chapman, Glenn Phillips, Tim Seifert(w), James Neesham, Mitchell Santner(c), Adam Milne, Lockie Ferguson, Ish Sodhi, Trent Boult
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal