Kiwis crumble as Yuvraj rules

A brittle Indian top order collapsed to some good seam bowling from Kiwi opening bowlers T Robin and I Butler. Ravneet Ricky (15), Manish Sharma (9), Mohammad Kaif (0) and Reetinder Sodhi (5) were out before India had 40 runs on the board. After that, a swashbuckling innings of 68 off from Yuvraj Singh saved the day for India.

The South paw played some solid shots in his innings that included 12 boundaries. He took the New Zealand bowling apart, hammering the ball to all parts of the ground. His sense of timing was not impeccable, but he hit the ball with such raw power that anything off the middle of the bat raced to boundaries. When he was dismissed by Irwin, the Indians once again began to falter. A useful 25 from Patel saw India through to 199.

Robin was the pick of the bowlers with 4/26 off his 10 overs.

The Kiwis began their response well, though they lost Bredon McCullum for just 6. Probably the two best batsmen in the New Zealand team, James Franklin and JP McNamee came together to give New Zealand a serious chance of victory. The two hit the ball crisply and scored freely gainst the Indian mediumpacers. After the spinners were introduced, the scoring rate dropped. Yuvraj Singh got into the attack again and removed McNamee after he had made exactly 50 runs.

At this point the Indian spinners tightened the screws on the Kiwis and closed the match out. The Kiwis lost wickets at regular intervals and were finally dismissed for 171 off 49.3 overs.