An eventful first over, a splintered bat

In his short T20I career so far, Hardik Pandya has already bowled one of the most dramatic overs witnessed in the format: the final over of India's World T20 game against Bangladesh in Bangalore. Now, on ODI debut, he sent down an over nearly as eventful.

Pitching the ball up and swinging it away from the right-hander at a sharp pace, he caused Martin Guptill all kinds of problems. First, an attempted cover drive streaked away to the third man boundary off the outside edge. Then, looking to leave a similar delivery, Guptill withdrew his bat slightly late, and the ball kissed the bottom edge and streaked away wide of second slip again. Then came another outswinger, slightly shorter, to beat Guptill's outside edge as he attempted to defend. Pandya followed this with a nervy debutant delivery, short, wide, and cracked away to the point boundary.

MS Dhoni's response to this ball was to treat it as an aberration, and reinforce his catching cordon, bringing in a third slip. Pandya ran in again, and angled the ball in towards off stump. Pitching on the shorter side of a good length, it left the batsman late. The line forced Guptill to play, the length froze his feet to the crease. The ball kissed his edge and flew to Rohit Sharma at second slip.

In 12 international matches before this one, Kedar Jadhav had never bowled. If there was an ideal time to bring on an utterly untested part-time offie, it was with New Zealand 57 for 5 in 16 overs. With two left-handers at the crease, Jadhav came on ahead of Amit Mishra and Axar Patel.

He could have had a wicket with the last ball of his first over, when James Neesham missed a sweep. The ball, going on with the angle from around the wicket, struck Neesham's pad in front of middle and off, and umpire Bruce Oxenford must have given it a lot of thought before deciding it might have missed leg stump.

Jadhav wasn't to be denied for too much longer, though. In his next over, he got a ball to stop on Neesham, who closed his bat face a touch too early while looking to work it into the leg side and popped a simple return catch. Next ball, Jadhav had two in two, as Mitchell Santner, looking to cut a non-turning delivery that cramped him for room, top-edged to MS Dhoni.

Umesh Yadav had already taken two catches in the innings - the first a stunning diving effort at mid-off to send back Corey Anderson - when Tim Southee, batting on 2, skied a top-edged pull towards him at fine leg. Umesh didn't have too much distance to cover, running forward, but perhaps misjudged the trajectory of the ball's descent by a centimeter or two. Rather than let the ball plop softly into his hands, therefore, he was forced to claw at it. The ball hit his palms and bounced out. He picked it up again and threw it to the striker's end. It was a throw of frustration rather than intent to get anyone out, since the batsmen had completed the most comfortable of singles, but it found its target anyway, hitting the stumps direct.

As they had done in the third Test in Indore, New Zealand's fast bowlers looked to test Ajinkya Rahane with frequent use of the short ball. Unlike in Indore, Rahane could trust the pace and bounce of the pitch, and handled the line of attack with a fair degree of comfort, and even picked up a couple of pulled sixes. But the tactic did expose one chink - not in Rahane's technique but in his bat. Looking to pull Doug Bracewell from outside off stump in the second over of India's innings, Rahane didn't quite middle the shot, and the ball dislodged a splinter of willow from the bottom of his bat.