Tirangular series between India, Srilanka and New Zealand started today. Opening match was played between India and New Zealand at Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium, Rangiri, Srilanka. New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first.
New Zealand gave a poor start as they lost 3 wickets when its total was just 28 runs. Later my favorite, Ross Taylor and Scott Styris partnered up well and played for 31.4 overs scoring a magnificent 190 runs partnership. Ross Taylor and Scott Styris scored a brilliant 95 and 89 runs respectively. After this partnership break, India managed to remove remaining 6 wickets successfully. By 48.5 overs, New Zealand scored a total of 288 runs and lost all its 10 wickets. Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar took 4 and 3 wickets respectively.
India needed 289 runs in 50 overs to win the opening match of the series. India gave a brilliant start and looked well till it lost its first wicket at the end of the seventh over. It was Virender Sehwag who departed scoring 19 runs from 23 deliveries. After this fall, things started to worsen for India as the wickets fell in regular interval. By 29.3 overs, India lost all its 10 wickets and managed to score only 88 runs in total. This was the lowest total scored by India against the New Zealand.
New Zealand won the match by 200 runs, which is a very huge margin. Ross Taylor played very well with the bat and in the field as well. He took 4 catches and captained very well. Man of the match was Ross Taylor for his awesome performance.