One ball left, and Tilak Varma was still there. That, in the end, was the whole story of the India vs New Zealand 2nd T20I at Hagley Oval on Saturday: when the chase got ugly, the calmest man in Christchurch was the left-hander who refused to blink.
India won by four wickets, chasing 181 with a ball to spare, and took a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. The scorecard says comfortable. The match was anything but.
The middle overs nearly broke India
India won the toss and bowled first, per ESPNcricinfo, and New Zealand made 180 for 5. Glenn Phillips carried the innings with 70 off 43 balls, per ESPNcricinfo, and Bevon Jacobs gave him company with 58 off 46. Arshdeep Singh took two wickets. It was a decent total on a pitch where boundaries did not come as freely as they had 48 hours earlier.
Then came the squeeze. Mitchell Santner, New Zealand’s captain, took 4 for 21, per ESPNcricinfo, and India went from a solid start to 70 for 5. Abhishek Sharma made 27, Sanju Samson 17, and the middle order folded in a heap. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the teenager whose name had dominated the build-up after Ishan Kishan was ruled out, made just 4.
This is where the game should have ended. It did not, and the reason is the part nobody will put on a highlights reel.
The catches New Zealand will replay all winter
ESPNcricinfo’s match report notes something brutal for the hosts: New Zealand’s poor fielding reprieved four of India’s specialist batters. Four lives. In a chase of 181, that is not bad luck, that is a donation.
Naman Dhir was one of the beneficiaries. His 31 off 17 balls, including three sixes, per The Tribune, dragged India back into a contest that had slipped away. By the time he departed, the asking rate had stopped climbing, and Tilak Varma had a partner he could trust in Nitish Kumar Reddy.
Tilak, and why this innings is different
Tilak finished unbeaten on 51 off 26 balls, per ESPNcricinfo, and was named Player of the Match. The numbers are good. The manner was better.
He did not swing wildly. He picked his moments, ran hard, and let Reddy, unbeaten on 26 off 13, do the damage at the other end. Their unbroken stand of 69, per The Tribune, is the kind of partnership that wins series, not just matches, because it was built under genuine pressure rather than in a dead rubber.
Here is the thing worth sitting with. Two games into this tour, India have now chased two very different targets: 226 in a blaze of boundaries on Thursday, and 181 in a scrap on Saturday. The first win announced the batting depth. The second proved it. Depth is not hitting sixes when you are ahead. Depth is finding a way when Santner has just taken your top order apart.
What this India vs New Zealand 2nd T20I win actually changes
New Zealand now need to win three straight games to take the series, and they must do it against a side that has already survived their best punch on this ground. The hosts will also be quietly furious about the fielding, and about Matt Henry bowling only two overs, per ESPNcricinfo, before leaving the attack.
For India, the questions shift. Kishan’s injury forced a reshuffle that is still settling, and the bowling attack conceded 180 after leaking 225 in the opener. The batters have bailed the bowlers out twice. That is a fun pattern for a week, not a plan for a series.
The teams meet again in Wellington on Tuesday for the third T20I. If New Zealand field like they did on Saturday, the series could be over before it reaches Auckland. If they catch what they drop, India will finally find out what this batting order looks like under real, sustained pressure. Either way, Tuesday just got a lot more interesting than a 2-0 scoreline usually allows.