India on Sunday claimed the number one position in the World Cup league table as they defeated the mighty Kiwis by 4 wickets at Dharmsala. This comes as a major delight after Team India defeated the Kiwis in a World Cup contest after 20 long years and also as revenge for the previous edition’s WC semi-final in which New Zealand had defeated India to reach the final against England.

Winning the toss and choosing to bowl first, India took two early wickets of Dewon Conway and Will Young but was met with resistance in the form of Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell who played a game-changing inning of 75 and 130 respectively, thanks to butterfingered fielding by India who dropped the batsmen pretty early on in their innings and gave them a second lifeline. However, once Rachin was dismissed, no other batsman seemed to have it in them to challenge India other than Daryl who continued his onslaught against India and helped the struggling New Zealand give India a target of 274.

Getting on the pitch with a mission to defeat New Zealand after 20 long years in a World Cup match

Rohit Sharma and Shubhman Gill gave India a great start in the powerful after scoring 63 runs. The skipper fell first in an unfortunate way after the ball edged the inside of the bat and went on to hit the stumps. Soon after Rohit, Gill too was dismissed after he was caught at deep third man while trying to hit a six above the head of that player after which Shreyas Iyer came to the pitch to help Kohli build a partnership.

While, there were small partnerships between Kohli and Iyer, Rahul and Surya, wickets kept falling from one end and it wasn’t until Ravindra Jadeja, who won the ‘Man of the Match’ award that he and Kohli built a strong partnership and ultimately won the game for India. This included a massive inning by Kohli of 95 runs where he just fell short of equalling Sachin’s record of  49 ODI centuries and moving on to his 79th century in general. However, he is now the top scorer of the World Cup which is just a sign that this is just the beginning and there a lot more than we can expect from the king.

This spectacular win against New Zealand not only brings India to the top position in the league but also has strengthened India’s hopes for a semi-final spot. This leaves India to overcome the English and South African challenges which are the more difficult teams to defeat this WC along with Sri Lanka and The Netherlands. Team India next faces England on the 29th of October at Lucknow.

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