Baroda, Dec. 4: In cricket, especially of the shorter variety, it is the approach that matters. While the Indians ended their day with smiles on their face, reaping rewards for their positive and attacking approach, New Zealand paid dearly for their lackluster and uninspiring performance.
It was a do-or-die encounter for the visitors in the thord game of the five-match series with the first two games already lost, but on Saturday, it rarely looked like that.
After the hosts’ bowlers came up with a tidy performance, restricting New Zealand to 224/9, Gautam Gambhir played a captain’s knock as India clinched the series with a nine-wicket victory.
Gambhir’s fluency (126 n.o., 117b, 16x4) was such that it made a mockery of the struggle by the New Zealand batsmen. It looked like the skipper was continuing his innings of an unbeaten 138 in Jaipur, as he showed little respect for the opposition bowlers. Gambhir has been dismissed only once in the series – in the first ODI – while amassing 302 runs
Even though the conditions had considerably eased out in the afternoon, it was the strokeplay of Gambhir that dismantled the attack. As he had promised on Friday, Gambhir, with Murali Vijay (30) and later with Virat Kohli (63 n.o., 70b, 6x4, 2x6) showed no complacency even while chasing a small total.
He initially used his nimble footwork to unsettle the bowlers during his 115-run opening partnership and later launched a calculated attack during his 114-run partnership with Kohli.
Gambhir was the dominant partner during the opening stand as he raced to 50 from just 30 balls, with Vijay playing the second fiddle. By the time Vijay perished attempting a tight single, India were well on course to clinch the series.
Gambhir slowed down as his innings progressed and reached his second successive century in 88 balls. He received good support from Kohli, who off late has shown keenness to build an innings.
As the target approached the duo became aggressive and finished with a flourish in 39.3 overs. Kohli got past 1,000 runs in ODIs this year with a six off Andy McKay, which also sealed the victory for India.
Kohli is the second player after Hashim Amla to get past the landmark.
The way the Indians finished was the way they started — dictating terms from the very first over. Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra got the ball to dart around and stifled the Kiwi batsmen.
Zaheer announced his return to fitness in style removing dangerman Brendon McCullum with the second ball of the match.
McCullum, yet to recover from back spasm, looked rusty and had to pay for lack of footwork edging an away-swinging delivery to Vijay at second slip. With the seamers calling the shots, the runs dried up and wickets fell at regular intervals.
Ross Taylor too failed to shrug off his lean patch and the things turned worse for the Kiwis. After the pace duo of Zaheer and Munaf reduced the visitors to 49/4, as Nehra, despite failing to pick up wickets, kept it tight. Later it was the turn of the spinners to torment.