Batter short, batters come up 50 runs short

Surya & Co drop a batter as they experiment before World Cup but it backfires; Black Caps pick up first T201 win of the tour

- GOMESH S @ Visakhapatnam

FOR a while, there was a deathly silence at the ACA-VDCA Stadium on Wednesday. It was a full house with 22,333 turning up to cheer for India, but there was not much to cheer. Chasing the 216-run target set by New Zealand, the hosts had lost their top three for only 55 runs in 6.4 overs.

Abhishek Sharma was caught at deep point on the very first ball when he charged at Matt Henry, trying to slash him. It is one of the very few areas where Abhishek is prone to get out early, and New Zealand did not waste any time getting the desired result. Suryakumar Yadav was almost caught on the last ball of the same over, but got lucky. That luck, however, did not last long. All Surya could manage was two fours before he offered a return catch to Jacob Duffy, but this time the ball actually carried.