New Zealand come to India and conquer them on their own way as decades of white-ball disappointment in India evaporated this week.
Whether it’s with a boundary or a wicket, one of the best feelings for a cricket player must be to travel to India and quiet the crowd. It not only makes them happy, but it also lets them know that they are in control of the game. The now-famous phrase “nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent” belongs to Pat Cummins.
Whether it’s with a boundary or a wicket, one of the best feelings for a cricket player must be to travel to India and quiet the crowd. It not only makes them happy, but it also lets them know that they are in control of the game. The now-famous phrase “nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent” belongs to Pat Cummins.
Mitchell’s century against India failed to produce the desired match outcome for the second time in that tournament, giving the audience the final laugh of the evening. They were also aware that they had escaped a bullet there.
Mitchell silenced the audience 39 times in his 319 balls in the middle, smashing 31 fours and eight sixes in his series total of 352, as New Zealand finally won an ODI series in India for the first time. Mitchell is so modest that he said, “We are quite used to that [in New Zealand],” when asked how it felt to quiet the audience. For us, that is fairly typical. The grassy banks are peaceful and serene.
Although they may not express it as such, they are aware of the enormous accomplishment. They had to defeat India in a home ODI despite losing the toss in order to become the first team to do so in three years. They had to end their eight-game losing run against India. And with what? With eight first-time visitors to India, two eventual debutants, and five players with fewer than ten games played, the team had around four times the experience of India.
Mitchell was enormous, Glenn Phillips most likely transformed from a phenomenal athlete to a batter you should be afraid of, Kyle Jamieson persisted in haunting India, and the opposition captain admitted that their fielding made a difference, but New Zealand had to do the unimaginable to defeat India in India. Both with the bat and the ball, they outspun India.
In India, there’s probably no other way to defeat India. In terms of quick bowling, the teams essentially neutralised one another; if anything, India was somewhat superior. In contrast to India, who scored 317 runs off 354 balls for the loss of five wickets against spin, New Zealand scored 351 runs off 318 balls and lost just three wickets.
This is by no means a moralistic critique of Williamson’s choice to play franchise cricket or an attempt to misinterpret Mitchell’s remarks, but you have to wonder how he feels about missing out on ODI history a season after missing out on New Zealand’s first Test series victory in India due to injury.
Repeating such victories is the best approach to address the issue of New Zealand cricket losing players to franchise cricket. Encourage them to always want to play for their country. Make it “cool” to be a part of a group of New Zealanders creating history, as Mitchell put it.