India vs New Zealand 2017, 3rd T20I: Hits and Misses

#5 Miss: The Indian opening pair

India’s premier opening batsmen could not bring their best to their table with the bat when they were sent back to the pavilion with after scoring just 14 runs off 15 deliveries combined.

In a regular T20 game, this is a bad effort from your opening pair. However, in a T20 game that’s truncated to 8 overs a side, it puts your team smack in the middle of a crisis.

The left-hand and right-hand combination looked at its dangerous best in the first T20 of the series where both Sharma and Dhawan scored terrific half centuries. However, they failed in the next game and could not power India to a strong start even today.

It is the consistency from the pair that has made it one of the best opening duos in limited overs cricket. However, that very consistency is in threat right now. They need to bounce back as a pair very soon, considering the team will be traveling away from home for full-fledged tours of South Africa and England next year.