New Zealand conquer India, on their own terms

One of the great feelings for a cricketer has to be to come to India and shush the crowd, be it with a wicket or with a boundary. Not only does it give them pleasure, it also confirms to them they are controlling the game. To Pat Cummins belong the now-immortal words: "nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent".

Daryl Mitchell has done that quite often. In the World Cup semi-final at the imposing Wankhede Stadium, a couple of days before Cummins said what he said, you could hear trains pull into the nearby Churchgate station as he hit nine fours and seven sixes in his 134. The crowd had the last laugh that night as for the second time in that tournament, Mitchell's hundred against India fell short of the desired match result. They also knew they had dodged a bullet there.

As New Zealand finally won an ODI series in India for the first time, Mitchell silenced the crowd 39 times in his 319 balls in the middle, hitting 31 fours and eight sixes in his series tally of 352. So self-effacing is Mitchell that when asked how it felt to hush the crowd up, he said: "We are quite used to that [in New Zealand]. That's pretty normal for us. Nice and quiet on the grass banks."

They might not make it sound so but they know what a huge achievement it is. To get there, they had to become the first team in three years to beat India in a home ODI despite losing the toss. They had to snap their eight-match losing streak against India. And with what? A side that had about fourth the experience of India, a side with eight first-time visitors to India, two eventual debutants and five players with fewer than 10 games under their belt.

Mitchell was colossal, Glenn Phillips probably went from being super athlete to a batter you need to fear, Kyle Jamieson continued to haunt India, the opposition captain acknowledged what a difference their fielding made, but to beat India in India, New Zealand did the unthinkable. They outspun India with both bat and ball.

There probably is no other way to beat India in India. The teams pretty much cancelled each other out when it comes to fast bowling; if anything, India were marginally better. Against spin, though, New Zealand scored 351 runs off 318 balls and lost just three wickets as opposed to India's 317 runs off 354 balls for the loss of five wickets.

You could say winning the toss helped in Rajkot, but in Indore it was the New Zealand spinners bowling under lights. And Michael Bracewell couldn't even bowl because of injury. And still India ended up facing more spin than New Zealand. That in itself is a story.

The signs were there early when Devon Conway reverse-swept Kuldeep Yadav for a four in his first over of the series. Kuldeep just about held his own in that match, but in the next Mitchell came at him harder. He charged at Kuldeep and hit him for a six before lap-sweeping him for four. In the third match he went first ball. Six again. At an average of 60.66 and economy of 7.28, this is Kuldeep's worst series in ODI cricket.

If sides can do this to Kuldeep, India have a problem. This is the first time he has looked ineffective since he straightened his run-up and gained some extra pace without losing too much of turn in the process. That balance of pace and turn might have tipped during this series. Add to it Ravindra Jadeja, who has taken one wicket in six matches since his comeback, which was a surprise in the first place because Axar Patel had done nothing wrong in that role, especially as a desperately needed spin disruptor with the bat.

New Zealand outdid them with Bracewell, experience of 40 ODIs, not even the best-known Bracewell in his family, and the 31-year-old debutant Jayden Lennox, formerly a greenskeeper at a golf course in Australia's Northern Territory, assembly technician at a place that builds equipment for livestock-feeding. Fingerspinners both of them.

It takes phenomenal control of length and pace variations to be able to contain India in India on small playing fields. Lennox started his career inside the powerplay with India 55 for 0. Twenty overs later, he has conceded just three boundaries, only one of them off an overpitched ball. Batters had to step out for the other two. That is the first rule as a fingerspinner: avoid the "step hit", which is to say don't let the batters attack you by just planting the front foot down.

Bracewell conceded just the three boundaries in his 18 overs, and Phillips continued to contribute as a bowler. They sought to use the new lenience on leg-side wides by cramping batters up.

Put together, the three spinners created enough run-rate pressure for the taller fast bowlers to take wickets with. There was a lot of concern expressed when Trent Boult started the trend of giving up NZC retainers for franchise cricket. Even this series win came without Kane Williamson, New Zealand's best batter of all time, who is in South Africa playing SA20.

Mitchell was asked about the phenomenal start to his ODI career where he is now threatening to break Hashim Amla's record of being the quickest to 3000 runs. "It's just cool to be part of a group of New Zealanders who are just getting stuck in and and achieving history," Mitchell said. "The things that we've never done as a group. For me personally I just want to win games and try to help our country. I love playing for New Zealand. It means so much and what the numbers will be at the end of my career will be. But to be able to get stuck in moments like we got tonight as a group and to come out the other side and um yeah, achieve what we have achieved, that's what drives you. That's what gets you up in the morning: to put on that silver fern and get stuck in."

This is not in any way a moralistic comment on Williamson's decision to opt for franchise cricket nor an attempt to take Mitchell's words out of context, but you wonder how he feels having missed out on being part of ODI history a season after he missed being part of New Zealand's first Test series win in India because of injury. If losing players to franchise cricket is a concern for cricket in New Zealand, there is no better way to mitigate it than repeating such wins. Make them want to be a part of the national team all the time. Make it "cool", in the words of Mitchell, to be part of a group of New Zealanders making history.