Batting first, India posted a mammoth total of 349/8 on the board in their allotted overs. Opening batter Shubman Gill smacked his highest score in the format and joined the elite club of ODI double centurions.
Gill hit 208 off just 149 balls with the help of 19 fours and 9 sixes. Captain Rohit Sharma (34 off 38) and Suryakumar Yadav (31 off 26) were the other two batters to cross the thirty-figure mark in the Indian innings.
Apart from Gill’s scintillating ton, the other highlight in the first essay was the controversial dismissal of vice-captain Hardik Pandya. Though Pandya could score only 28 runs after facing 38 balls, he kept the scoreboard ticking before being given out in the 40th over.
On the fourth delivery of the over bowled by Daryl Mitchell, Pandya tried to defend the ball, angling towards him. The white leather, which passed very close to the stumps, was collected by the New Zealand wicketkeeper Tom Latham. In the process, one of the bails got dislodged. The decision was then sent upstairs to the TV umpire, who, after looking at the incident from different angles, ruled the ball ‘out’.
Former Indian cricketer Ravi Shastri, who was doing commentary at the moment, believed that the decision was unfair to the batter. “Oh, it’s been given out! Daryl Mitchell should be happy,” Shastri said on-air.
“Should really be happy, because that, if you take a look again as to where the keeper’s gloves are, where the ball is as it passes the stumps, it looked as if the ball was at least an inch, inch-and-a-half above the stumps … ball clearly looks to be above the bail. You can see as it goes past into the gloves, there’s no red light, it’s only after that. There you go. From that angle you can see that the gloves are closer to the bails than the ball,” he added.
Just like Shastri and many others, the decision also did not go down well with Hardik’s wife Natasa Stankovic as she took to her Instagram to criticize the controversial dismissal. She uploaded an image of Hardik’s doubtful dismissal on her Instagram story and captioned it, “There was no bat involved, wasn’t bowled out. So how’s this out?”
Natasa Stankovic Instagram story (Photo Source: Twitter)
Meanwhile, in reply to India’s massive total, New Zealand managed to reach 337 in 49.2 overs. All-rounder Michael Bracewell shined for the Blackcaps, smashing 140 off just 78 balls (12 fours and 1. He was the last man to be dismissed in the 50th over of the second innings.
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