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New Zealand and India locked horns in the first T20I of the series on 6th February 2019. India had already clinched the ODI series with the 4-1 result in their favour. The team was without their talisman, Virat Kohli whereas Rishabh Pant and Krunal Pandya joined the squad for the T20I series.
On the other hand, New Zealand were without their opener, Martin Guptill and opted to field unfamiliar faces like debutant Daryl Mitchell and Scott Kuggeleijn. After the dominating performances in the ODI series, India were the favorites to win the first battle. In the end, it turned out to be a radically different story.
After winning the toss, Rohit Sharma opted for fielding which eventually proved to be a bad decision. The New Zealand openers were off to a flying start, finishing the first power-play with 66 runs, without losing a wicket. Hardik Pandya got the first breakthrough as Colin Munro holed out to long-on in the ninth over. Wicket-keeper opener, Tim Seifert continued to tonk the Indian bowlers all over the ground before getting out in the thirteenth over. A brilliant effort by Dinesh Karthik ended the inning of Daryl Mitchell, with NZ at 164 runs in 15 overs.
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New Zealand continued to dominate as Indian bowlers weren't able to restrict the run-flow in the death overs. In the end, NZ set a target of 220 runs to chase.
In the absence of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma had the responsibility to bat till the end and take the game to the wire. However, he became the victim of Tim Southee in the third over of the innings. Shikhar Dhawan and Vijay Shankar tried to pace up the innings but got out in the process. None of the batsmen later applied themselves on the pitch and got out cheaply, resulting in losing the match by 80 runs.
Such a demolition set Twitter on fire and a lot of cricket pundits and fans expressed their views on this humiliation.
Here are some of the best tweets:
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