Match Report | The Dravid-Rohit era begins with a ruthless whitewash of New Zealand

India whitewashed New Zealand in the T20I series in the most ruthless of manners winning the third and the final match by a huge margin of 73 runs.

This marked the opening of the Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid partnership which in all likelihood, will be going into the next year’s T20 World Cup in Australia. There were a lot of positives for India, especially the two debutants in Venkatesh Iyer and Harshal Patel who did well on the night. Playing in Kolkata, Venkatesh Iyer got his first bowling experience at the Eden Gardens and held his own against the likes of Tim Seifert, Martin Guptill and Jimmy Neesham. He finished with the figures of 3-0-12-1.

Harshal Patel has been the pick among the bowlers in this series and finished the match with two wickets to his name conceding 26 runs from his 3 overs.

However, the star of the night was Axar Patel who built the foundations for India’s win early in the game. His power play spell of 2-0-2-3 trashed Kiwis hopes of chasing the total of 185 runs and they could not build any significant partnerships from there. Barring Martin Guptill who scored 51 off 36 balls, the visitors were found hapless against the all round bowling of the Indian team.

Earlier in the innings, captain Rohit Sharma led from the front and took charge of the scoring. He smashed a 31-ball 56 and put India in a good position by the end of the powerplay. While India could not do much with that and lost momentum in the middle phase of play, a late surge from Deepak Chahar and Harshal Patel put India back in the hunt. The duo put on a partnership of 22 runs from just 9 balls and helped India reach a good total.

Axar Patel was adjudged the man of the match for his exceptional spell of 3-0-9-3 and stated that he owes this to the Indian Premier League having earned his confidence from the cash-rich league. Rohit Sharma was announced the man of series having scored 159 runs in three matches.