Four Reasons Why India Lost ODI Series Against New Zealand

Four Reasons Why India Lost ODI Series Against New Zealand; Who would have expected such a result in the recently-culminated ODI series, especially after the whitewash in the shorter format of the game? However, cricket often gives you surprises and the result of the series is one such. The Indian National Cricket Team led by Virat Kohli found themselves in the comfortable position in the first half of the game in all three innings but somehow, they ended on the wrong side of things at the end of the match.

Did India underperform in the series or New Zealand displayed better skills? Or a combination of both?

Meanwhile, we have figured out four reasons for India’s loss in the three-match ODI series.

Four Reasons Why India Lost series against New Zealand in ODIs:

4. Dip in form for the fast bowlers:

In the last couple of years, one of the most improved aspects of the Indian team is: their fast bowling department. They have been delivering the goods for a while now, across the formats. But unfortunately, everything wasn’t the same in the last three ODI games.

In the first game, even after scoring 346 runs on the board, India failed to defend the score with Mohammed Shami and Shardul Thakur leaking runs thick and fast.

Even in the second game, they failed to get wickets in the powerplay overs and failed to make the most of the platform set by spinners in the middle overs.

Ross Taylor, the debutant Kyle Jamieson thrashed Indian bowlers to all corners of the park, which proved costly for India. At one stage, they looked like being folded out under 200 with eight wickets down but they ended up scoring 273, which was successfully defended by their bowlers.

Then comes the third game, in which, the onus was on the bowlers to make things happen with 296 runs on the board.

But once again, the fast bowlers failed to get wickets in the powerplay overs and leaked runs at a high rate. Though Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja pulled things back, the young Navdeep Saini and Shardul Thakur gave freebies to New Zealand to end on the wrong side.

Also Read: Dubai-based Lady Accuses Shadab Khan Of Blackmailing Her Over Nude Photos, Posts Chat Screenshots

3. Non-regular openers:

With Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan being injured, the Indian team management tried two new openers in the series; in the name of Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal.

Unfortunately, the duo failed to perform in all three games. Though Prithvi Shaw looked a bit better, Mayank Agarwal was a complete failure with scores of 32, 3 and one in the three games.

Shaw, on the other hand, got a good start in each game but he failed to capitalise it in pursuit of finding quick runs for the team when it wasn’t required. He tried to play his natural game, which didn’t help the team against Kiwis’ quality fast bowlers. He scored 20, 24 and 42 in his three games.

Usually, India always enters with strong openers, who used to score a high percentage of total runs with Rohit, Shikhar and KL Rahul displaying top-notch skills.

Surely, India have missed them in this series.

2. Jasprit Bumrah going wicketless:

How surprising is that to see Jasprit Bumrah going wicketless in a complete series? He bowled his quota of 10 overs in all three games and couldn’t pick even a single wicket for his side.

With Shardul Thakur and Navdeep Saini being inexperienced, much was expected from Bumrah in the three-match ODI series but unfortunately, he failed to deliver the required goods.

Martin Guptill dominated him in the middle overs while Ross Taylor and Tom Latham took him to the cleaners in middle and slog overs. Though Bumrah bowled a few economical spells in the middle, he never picked a wicket to help his side get a breakthrough.

10 overs 0/53, 10 overs 0/64 and 10 overs 0/50 are the figures registered by Bumrah in the three ODI games.

Surprisingly, he leaked runs more than he usually does.

1. A Rare Failure for Virat Kohli:

When was the last time we have seen Virat Kohli finishing a series without century or a match-winning knock for his side?

The flamboyant batsman failed to make things fall in place with the bat in all three games. Kohli scored just 75 runs in three matches. His best knock of the series was 51 when he stitched a partnership with Shreyas Iyer in the first game of the series at Hamilton.

It was followed by the 15-run knock in the second game at Auckland in the chase of 274. He was expected to steer the chase in the second game but failed to answer Tim Southee’s inswinger.

With a couple of back-to-back losses, Kohli was expected to come up with a match-winning knock in the final game but that wasn’t the case, as he scored only nine runs to see his side in trouble again.