India won a match on Sunday that their batting did very little to earn. The bowlers took it from them.
Two days earlier New Zealand had beaten India by 244 runs, a result that left the series at 2-1 and the final game wide open. The fifth ODI went the other way, and it was close until the last few overs.
New Zealand won the toss, their first of the series, and chose to bowl. They made changes: Jacob Duffy and Blair Tickner came in for Kyle Jamieson and Matt Henry, who are preparing for the Test series. India gave a debut to Yash Thakur and brought Mohammed Siraj back.
India were 64 for 1 at one stage and then lost their way. Rohit Sharma made 7, Ruturaj Gaikwad 18, Virat Kohli 5 and captain Shreyas Iyer 22. Mitchell Santner finished with 3 for 47 and Duffy with 3 for 60.
Axar Patel and Ishan Kishan each made 46 and put some shape on the innings. They were the only two Indian batters to pass 25. Naman Dhir added 22 off 31 balls. Then the last pair took over. Arshdeep Singh, who reportedly hit a six off his first ball, scored 14 off four deliveries with two sixes, and Siraj stayed unbeaten on 14. Their stand of 26 for the last wicket took India to 209 before Duffy ended the innings in the 43rd over.
It looked light for a ground where New Zealand had scored 333 two days before.
New Zealand never got going. Tim Seifert went for 14 and Finn Allen for 1. Will Young made 22 and Nick Kelly 24. Dean Foxcroft top-scored with 31, and Santner added 24 before the lower order ran out of partners.
Arshdeep finished with 3 for 30. Siraj took 2 for 50, Thakur had 1 for 38 from his ten overs on debut, and Axar picked up two as well, including the last two wickets of Tickner and Duffy. New Zealand were out for 187 in 48.1 overs.
India’s fast bowlers had decided a series that ran long, Sportstar wrote. Siraj bowled ten overs with one maiden, and Thakur’s ten went for 38, a steady start to his ODI career.
Iyer told reporters that conditions in New Zealand were not comparable to South Africa’s and that batting had been hard for both sides, with the wickets mainly helping bowlers, according to Deccan Herald and ThePrint. Santner said it had been a very close series that could have gone either way, Cricinfo reported.
Arshdeep told Hindustan Times he and Siraj had talked about how their late runs could prove crucial. On Cricbuzz, Dinesh Karthik said Arshdeep’s rise from support bowler to spearhead had been amazing.
The win does not hide the struggles of India’s two most experienced batters. The Indian Express counted 116 runs from eight innings between Rohit and Kohli on the tour. Open Magazine put it as one 74 and seven failures, in an article that also raised the World Cup question.
Cricbuzz ran a piece headed “India gain series, but still left with more questions than answers”. The Times of India reported that umpires Paul Reiffel and Wayne Knights missed a strike-rotation error during the match. The reports reviewed did not make clear whether it affected the result.
India won the first two ODIs, the third in Hamilton was abandoned because of rain, and New Zealand took the fourth. India’s win in the fifth makes it their third ODI series victory in New Zealand, according to The Economic Times, and the first since 2019, according to Mumbai Indians. New Zealand lost their unbeaten home-series record, the NZ Herald reported.
The National reported that India consolidated their No. 1 ranking in ODIs. For New Zealand, Henry and Jamieson now turn to the Test series.
