India Vs New Zealand: Highlight Performances

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DAMBULLA, SRI LANKA (GaeaTimes.com)- Cricket fans have reasons to rejoice as bowlers seem to be making a comeback on the pitches of the subcontinent with par scores going below 250. India made their way into the semifinals with the help of Virender Sehwag and some scintillating bowling performances by the seamers. Considering that a good performance was due for Munaf Patel and Praveen Kumar for a long time now, the duo proved that they provide the perfect balance of pace and swing in the Indian attack. The injury prone Ashish Nehra too made an excellent comeback performance to give India the necessary momentum for the final. For New Zealand, Tim Southee took four wickets and Kyle Mills finished with figures of 2/42 in spite of Virender Sehwag’s onslaught.

Virender Sehwag took matters into his own hand from the very beginning as wickets crumbled around him. With none of the top five batsmen reaching double figures in the difficult conditions, the Delhi Daredevil made things look easy as he blazed his way to a half-century in just 41 deliveries. With other Indian batsmen struggling Virender Sehwag realized that it is important to score quickly before the wickets run out on the other end. Captain MS Dhoni provided the necessary support to take the score past 200 which was being speculated as a winning score on the track. The partnership between MS Dhoni and Virender Sehwag was broken by Nathan McCullum and New Zealand were staring at a humongous total of 223 on the tough track.

The Indian pace attack ensured that the New Zealand chase never got off to a start and at one point it looked like the Black Caps will not make it past the 3 digit mark. Reeling at 53/8, it was Kyle Mills who made a quickfire 52 to take the score to a more respectable 118.