India becomes first team to whitewash New Zealand both home and away in T20Is

India has become the first-ever team to secure a whitewash against New Zealand both home and away in the T20 format of the game. When the Indian team had faced the Blackcaps in a 5-match T20I series last year, they had won all 5 games, some of them rather comprehensively, and they repeated almost the same again when they took on the Blackcaps at home in the 3-game series that finished yesterday in Kolkata.

Although New Zealand were resting some of their players, it was still anticipated to be a close series, given the fact that the Kiwis had only recently made it to the T20 World Cup final, but it turned out a complete mismatch as the Indian team just proved too strong in all three departments of the game throughout the series.

India were also not playing with their full-strength side, as the team’s premier fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah and the former T20I captain Virat Kohli were rested to manage their workload. One of the other key bowlers of the side, Mohammed Siraj, also got injured in the first match of the series, but India hardly had to break a sweat to win all three games.

The new Indian T20I captain Rohit Sharma took the onus upon himself to lead by example as he scored two half-centuries in the series, both at a good clip and was declared the player of the series to make match-winning contributions with the bat at the top of the order.

Despite dominating New Zealand in bilaterals, India lost the most important game to them in T20 World Cup

It’s interesting that India has dominated New Zealand in the T20I bilaterals, having beaten them in 8 out of the last 8 T20I bilateral games home and away, but when it came to the biggest of stages recently in the T20 World Cup in the UAE, it was the Kiwis who came on top as they beat India and eliminated them from the World Cup.

This is something that India will have to correct going forward, as they would want to win key games against New Zealand in big world tournaments.