Tilak Varma scripted a stunning turnaround for India in Christchurch to put the visitors 2-0 up in the T20I series against New Zealand. India appeared to be heading to a defeat when Mitchell Santner's four-fer put New Zealand in total control. However, Tilak joined forces with Nitish Reddy and got the job done with a ball left.
Taking the dew factor into consideration, Shreyas Iyer had no hesitation in opting to bowl after winning the toss. Even though Tim Seifert slammed the third ball of the contest for a six, he mistimed one in the following over and departed early. Bhuvneshwar Kumar then dismissed Daryl Mitchell, who got a leading edge and was caught at cover. While New Zealand tried to counterpunch, India finished the Powerplay on a high note when Finn Allen missed a scoop and lost his stumps to Prince Yadav, who had replaced Mayank Yadav in the XI.
Losing three wickets in the first six overs, the hosts were forced to rebuild. It took them 20 deliveries to finally break the shackles and find a boundary but there was plenty of work to be done having crawled to just 66 at the halfway point. It was Glenn Phillips who kickstarted New Zealand's recovery when he hammered sixes in back-to-back overs before clearing Axar Patel over long off en route his half-century.
Bevon Jacobs, who scoring at only a run-a-ball, finally accelerated when he picked Prince for a couple of boundaries in a single over to go past fifty. The century partnership was finally broken by Arshdeep Singh, who dismissed Phillips and Jacobs, too, couldn't provide his side the desired finish as he perished off a full toss. In the two balls he faced, Michael Bracewell cleared the ropes once and then found the boundary to help his team breach 180 but given India's firepower with the bat, the total certainly appeared to be insufficient.
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