India 165 for 8 (Pandey 50*, Rahul 39, Sodhi 3-26) tied New Zealand 165 for 7 (Munro 64, Seifert 57, Thakur 2-33)
India won the Super Over
Seven runs needed off six balls. Seven wickets in hand. Ross Taylor, who has played more T20 matches than the rest of his side combined, on strike. Surely, New Zealand couldn’t lose from that kind of position again, right? Think again.
New Zealand then sent out Tim Seifert and Colin Munro, their half-centurions from earlier in the evening, to outsmart Jasprit Bumrah in the Super Over. In Hamilton, New Zealand failed to defend 17 in the shootout. Here, they scrambled to 13 after Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul failed to latch on to skiers.
There, Tim Southee sat on haunches as Rohit Sharma muscled him for two sixes to win the game. On Friday, he took the ball again, this time trying to deny Rahul and Virat Kohli. He saw the first two balls being clobbered for 10, and had Rahul caught at deep square leg off the third. India needed four off three.
Where New Zealand slogged when faced with this equation in regulation time, Kohli calmly nudged the ball towards mid-on, who was right at the edge of the ring, to scamper back for a second with Sanju Samson. With two needed off two, Kohli lent the finishing touches with a muscular pull to the midwicket fence as India completed another remarkable win, to lead the series 4-0.
Southee was left heartbroken again, as were the New Zealand fans.
The final over mayhem
In Hamilton, the first ball off the final over was a juicy full toss that Taylor walloped over deep midwicket. Here, Thakur delivered an excellent slower ball. Taylor went for his favourite hitting arc but dragged it to Iyer in the deep.
But Daryl Mitchell eased the nerves by lofting the next ball over mid-off for four. Pressure relieved, right? Wrong. New Zealand were just entering into their nervous breakdown territory.
From three off four, they tried to steal a bye, only to be outsmarted by Rahul, who was ready with his gloves off to effect an underarm flick to catch Tim Seifert short after he had made what should have been a match-winning 57.
The pressure was on Mitchell Santner as he took strike. It was his superb catch off Kohli earlier in the evening that triggered a panic of sorts for India. His middle-order slow down with Ish Sodhi – they finished with four for 52 off eight overs – helped restrict India to 165. After all that, he still had to win it with the bat. With three needed off three, he picked a single towards midwicket and slipped while turning for the second.
Two runs. Two deliveries. The pressure is on the bowler. He misses by an inch and it could be curtains. Here, Thakur calmly lands a superb knuckleball on a length, gets it to deviate just a wee bit. Santner goes for a glory hit and slices it to Shivam Dube at mid-off. Mayhem. Tension.
A combination of Thakur’s relay throw from deep cover and Kohli’s game awareness from the edge of the ring at cover helped run out Munro as he was ambling through for a second run. In the same over, Tom Bruce was bowled around his legs, deceived by Yuzvendra Chahal’s drift. The game turned, asking rate mounted and India applied the brakes. For all that, the game should’ve never gone into a Super Over. It did, and for that, New Zealand will have only themselves to blame.
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