NZ ride Phillips ton to bury India under highest total

The right-hander smashed a 49-ball 107 as the hosts finally won a game in the series.

Kolkata: From the highs of Wellington, this was a correction waiting to happen. Throughout this T20I series, India had been pushing New Zealand. And New Zealand kept obliging. Scores of 198 and 180 proved inadequate, so the Kiwis stretched themselves to 225. When that was chased down with 80 balls to spare, New Zealand raised the bar in Auckland to post 259/7, their highest ever T20I score. Glenn Phillips smashed a 49-ball 107, and New Zealand hit 20 sixes, six of which came against Nitish Reddy who ended up conceding a sobering 64 runs in his quota of four overs.

New Zealand's Glenn Phillips scored 109 runs against India. (AP)

In reply, India just couldn’t muster enough boundary hits. Chances of that were anyway dimmed by the powerplay as India lost Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan in the space of four balls of the first over of the chase, before Abhishek Sharma and Shreyas Iyer threw away their wickets in the fifth and sixth overs.

Such was the asking rate though that India didn’t have any choice but to keep trying to clear the boundaries, till they had to stop at 172/9, losing by 87 runs. In hindsight, opting to bat first probably looked a more promising option but why Iyer didn’t want to deviate from their approach was also understandable.

Auckland’s Eden Park is one of those unusual arenas where the long boundaries are short and the square boundaries are extraordinarily long. Unless a side is well read in, it’s very difficult to adjust to Auckland in the matter of two days. More so when New Zealand put up a display of power-hitting that left India's bowling attack looking decidedly ordinary.

At the heart of the carnage were Phillips and Michael Bracewell, who transformed an innings that had threatened to lose its way into an exhibition of extraordinary hitting. Their 115-run partnership came off just 40 balls, the highest stand of 100 or more against India in T20Is and the fourth highest against a full member nation. India had no convincing answers once they got going.

For a while, New Zealand's innings had followed a familiar pattern. Tim Seifert fell in the first over, caught at third man off Mayank Yadav, continuing a miserable run against India's away-going deliveries. Daryl Mitchell briefly threatened to take the game away, smashing 24 off nine balls, including two sixes and two fours, before Mayank found his response with a searing yorker that trapped him leg-before.

Finn Allen, who has repeatedly threatened without converting his starts, looked dangerous again. His 31 off 17 balls included two sixes, but Axar Patel eventually tempted him into a misjudged hit, with Abhishek Sharma completing the catch at deep extra cover. When Mayank removed Bevon Jacobs for seven, India appeared to have the innings under control at 109 for four after 10.4 overs.

What followed was an extraordinary collapse of India's bowling discipline. Phillips, already riding two half-centuries in the series, found an ideal partner in Bracewell. The left-hander immediately took the attack to India's spinners, taking 16 runs off Naman Dhir's opening over before launching into Patel. Four boundaries and a six came off Patel’s third over as Bracewell exploited the lengths and lines that should have been India's safest option.

Phillips was equally destructive against pace. Reddy, who had been relatively economical in his first two overs, was taken apart in the 16th. Phillips collected five sixes in the over, including three consecutive blows, as Reddy conceded 32 runs. Bracewell, meanwhile, brought up his fifty from just 19 balls, using Mayank's pace and India's predictable lengths to devastating effect.

India's problems were as much tactical as technical. They offered too many deliveries in the hitting arc, failed to adapt their lengths when Phillips and Bracewell began moving across the crease, and allowed the partnership to dictate terms.

And their problems were not confined to one bowler. Prince Yadav conceded 49 from four overs, Patel went for 43 from three, while Mayank, despite taking three wickets, finished with 48. There was very little discipline in their line, and too many attempted yorkers landed full. India's fielding offered little relief either, with Phillips surviving a straightforward chance at long-off when Dhir misjudged a skier off Axar.

Phillips reached his hundred from 46 balls, matching his own record for New Zealand's second-fastest T20I century, before finishing with 107, striking six fours and 10 sixes. Arshdeep Singh was the only Indian bowler to finish below 10 runs an over, returning 38 for one, but even his disciplined death bowling could not prevent New Zealand from accelerating to 259.

There is no doubt India possess the skill to undertake chases like this but that it just wasn’t their day was evident in the first over when Samson top-edged Jacob Duffy before Kishan didn’t connect an attempted whip. Once Abhishek was caught at mid-off and Iyer backed away to cart Adam Milne, only to see his stumps disturbed, India’s chase was as good as over.