India swept aside New Zealand 5-0 in the T20I series and made a giant leap towards their T20 World Cup preparations with the series win. With them scheduled to play no T20Is till the Indian T20 League now, we take a look at some takeaways for the visitors.
Winning batting first
Sure, they were helped by New Zealand's dubious batting at times, but India had a minor issue with defending targets and they made a rousing correction to that in New Zealand, a country where they had won just one T20I before. India batted first in the last three matches of the series and defended totals all three times from positions they were set to lose matches from. That, essentially, is a big takeaway for India as in T20Is they never really accelerated full throttle and ended up making below-par totals they couldn't defend.
The utility player, Shardul Thakur
Shardul Thakur might have ended the series with a scary 13-run over as Ish Sodhi tonked him for two sixes, but the Mumbai bowler proved his mettle in the series with some impressive bowling performances including dragging the fourth T20I to the Super Over. He was decent with the bat too, putting up a 43-run partnership with Manish Pandey and continuing his batting exploits from the series against West Indies and later Australia. Even if he is a stop-gap for Deepak Chahar, Thakur will know that this time around he has grabbed his chances.
The contrasting returns of Manish Pandey and Shivam Dube
Two contrasting players for India in the series, Manish Pandey and Shivam Dube had very different returns and exposed why India haven't really been planning well in T20Is. Dube was pushed up above Manish in the batting order and never looked comfortable as a batsman in the series, including in his outing at no. 3.
Pandey, on the other hand, has finished matches on a high and his half-century in the fourth T20I gave India a fighting total. In his last seven T20Is, Manish Pandey hasn't been dismissed at all - 2*, 22*, 31*, 14*, 14*, 50* and 11*. A total of 144 runs without being dismissed should make Pandey India's assigned finisher in the format at least until Hardik Pandya returns.
Sanju Samson not really different from Rishabh Pant
There were hues and cries over Sanju Samson's repeated benching in India's limited-overs squad. The Kerala wicket-keeper batsman was rewarded with two successive matches in the series but like with his poor six and dismissal sequence against Sri Lanka at Pune, Samson failed to fire and perished to flashy strokes where he gifted his wicket away. The criticism thrown at Rishabh Pant was that he was hit or miss, and based on evidence so far, even if the sample size is small, Samson is no different.
KL Rahul, the T20I GOAT
KL Rahul has been India's Man Friday of late. The Karnataka opener was moved to the top of the order and had a swashbuckling outing in the series, making 224 runs in five matches, the most in a bilateral T20I series for India.
Most runs in a bilateral series for India in T20Is
224 KL Rahul v NZ 2020 (5 matches)
199 Virat Kohli v AUS 2016 (3 matches)
183 Virat Kohli v WI 2019 (3 matches)
164 KL Rahul v WI 2019 (3 matches)
He was also the keeper for India and was reasonably good behind the stumps, including pulling off an outrageous run-out (that of Tom Bruce) in the final game at Mount Maunganui. Rahul has a T20I average of 45.66 at a strike rate above 145 and is turning into a GOAT in the format.
Feature image courtesy: AFP / Michael Bradley
