Team India has received their second consecutive defeat against New Zealand. The three match ODI series went to the hosts with India losing their second ODI played at Auckland.
Captain Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl first. The BlackCaps made a decent start to their innings putting a half century stand for the first wicket. Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja resisted the New Zealand batters for a while but the scorecard kept ticking. Once again it is Ross Taylor who played a crucial innings. He smashed unbeaten 73 runs with six fours and two sixes. In the end, New Zealand put a score of 273 runs for the loss of eight wickets.
India did not make a great start in their chase. Mayank Agarwal failed once again and so did Prithvi Shaw. The newcomers did not make any impression and then came Virat Kohli. He got out cheaply and it was up to the lower order batsmen which is inexperienced. Lokesh Rahul did not live up to the expectation but Shreyas Iyer scored a fifty. But wickets kept wee tumbling at the other end. Jadeja along with Saina tried to their best and in this course, the Indian all-rounder brought his half century.
As the match was getting close, the pressure was on Indian batsmen and they panicked and wickets fell. Finally India lost the match by 22 runs and conceded the series to hosts. The third ODI will be played at Mount Maunganui on February 11th.
