Before the start of the series against New Zealand, India needed four wins to reach the final of the World Test Championship (WTC). From fans to pundits, it was predicted that the Indian team would win all three test matches against New Zealand and secure a place in the final by winning at least one match in the Australia tour.
But the result was quite the opposite. The Kiwi team made a clean sweep of the series 3-0 by beating India in three consecutive Test matches in India. After 24 years, a team defeated India on Indian soil. Earlier in the year 2000, South Africa had beaten India 2-0 in India. Why did the Indian team suffer such a fate against New Zealand, let’s understand in 5 factors…
1. Flop show from our superstar batsmen: On paper, Indian batting was much better than New Zealand’s, but on the field, Indian stars remained like paper lions. Virat Kohli, who scored 80 centuries in international cricket, scored only 92 runs in 6 innings of the three test matches in this series.
Team captain Rohit Sharma scored two runs less than Virat (93 runs). He scored 91 runs in 6 innings. Young batsmen Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan were also able to cross 50 only once each in their 6-6 innings.
How Indian batting failed, understand it with a fact. Three New Zealand batsmen scored over 200-200 runs in the series. At the same time, only Indian Rishabh Pant was able to cross the 200-run mark.
2. New Zealand’s left-arm bowlers dominated the Indian batsmen in the series. After losing the first Test in Bengaluru, the Indian team management decided to make a friendly pitch, but could not avoid the series defeat. In the overall series, Ajaz Patel took 15 wickets and Mitchell Santner 13 wickets.
Mitchell Santner in the Pune Test and Ajaz Patel in the Mumbai Test proved the ineffectiveness of Indian batsmen. Santner took a total of 13 wickets in Pune, while Ajaz Patel took 11 wickets in the Mumbai Test. He also took 2-2 wickets in Pune and Bengaluru.
3. Failure of Ravichandran Ashwin India’s experienced spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has completely failed in this series. He could only take 9 wickets in three Tests. While Mitchell Santner took 13 wickets after playing just one match.
4. Unable to play the seam and swing in the first Test in the series opener in Bengaluru, the Indian batting disintegrated in front of the Kiwis’ bounce and swing. There, Rohit Sharma could not read the pitch conditions. In this match, New Zealand fast bowlers took 17 wickets. Of these, 8 wickets were taken by Matt Henry, 7 wickets by William O’Rourke and 2 wickets by Tim Southee.
In this match, the Indian team was all out for 46 runs in the first innings. Kohli, Sarfaraz, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin couldn’t even open their account in this innings.
5. India took New Zealand lightly, Kiwis came with better preparation. The New Zealand team has been touring India since 1955, but they have never managed to win a Test series here before. It is for this reason that the Indian leadership probably did not take New Zealand seriously. Just before this series, the Kiwi team had to face defeat in Sri Lanka. Most Indian fans and pundits were convinced that winning the series against New Zealand would prove to be a breeze for India. The opposite happened. Good practices against manipulation in Sri Lanka have proven useful for New Zealand in India.
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India make a clean slate at home after 24, New Zealand win Mumbai Test by 25 runs
New Zealand beat India by 25 runs in the third Test. With this, the team won the three-game series 3-0. The Kiwi team won the Test series in India for the first time. The Indian team made a clean slate at home after 24 years. Before this, the Indian team had made a clean slate against South Africa in the 2-match Test series in 2000. Full News