5 players who lit up the India - New Zealand ODI series

#2 Virat Kohli

Kohli was India’s best performer with the bat

If Mishra was the star with the ball, it was the Test captain Virat Kohli who shouldered a major share of the batting responsibilities in the series. Chasing 190 in the first ODI, his unbeaten innings of 85 saw India make merry of the low target and win without much worry. He won the ‘Jana Bankable Player’ Award for the same.

He rarely fails while chasing, but the law of averages caught up with him for once, in the second ODI at his home ground Delhi, and the rest of the batsmen failed to take the team through for a change.

However, a stiff target of 286 again brought out the best of Kohli in the third ODI. The innings of 154* at Mohali was a clinical effort stamped with his class written all over it - a batting equivalent of Mishra’s 5 wicket display at Vizag - that helped India coast to an easy seven-wicket victory.

He continued his rich vein of form into the final two ODIs with scores of 45 and 65 and finished the series as the highest run-getter, with an aggregate of 385 runs at an average of 119.33 and strike rate of 100.84.