Stormy innings by Mitchell Santner. (Photo- Phil Walter/Getty Images)
The West Indies team’s tour of New Zealand has started. The first match of the 5-match T20 series between the two teams was played at Eden Park in Auckland. In this match, the West Indies team managed to win by 7 runs and took a 1-0 lead in the series. West Indies dominated the entire match, but in the last overs, New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner played an explosive innings and made a record-breaking partnership for the last wicket, but could not lead the team to victory.
Shay Hope played captaincy innings
In this match, New Zealand won the toss and decided to bowl first. Their start was also good and West Indies lost the first 3 wickets for just 43 runs. But West Indies captain Shay Hope held one end and played a brilliant inning of 53 runs in 39 balls, which included 4 fours and 3 sixes. Rovman Powell also contributed 33 runs, while Roston Chase scored 28 runs. Due to which the West Indies team managed to score 164 runs at the loss of 6 wickets in 20 overs. During this period, Jack Foulkes and Jacob Duffy took maximum 2-2 wickets for New Zealand.
New Zealand’s batsmen were flops
In reply by 165 runs, New Zealand’s batting was very poor. The team lost 9 wickets for only 109 runs. Due to which she lagged far behind in the competition. Tim Robinson lost his wicket after scoring 27 runs and Devon Conway after scoring only 13 runs. At the same time, Rachin Ravindra also could not go beyond 21 runs. Mark Chapman also played an inning of 7 runs and Daryl Mitchell played an inning of 13 runs. But New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner, who came to bat at number 8, played a fighting innings.
Mitchell Santner rained fours and sixes
When New Zealand lost its 9th wicket, the team needed 57 runs in 20 balls to win. But after this Mitchell Santner showered fours and sixes. In the 18th over of the innings, he hit 5 boundaries on 5 consecutive balls, which included 4 fours and 1 six and scored a total of 23 runs. After this, he hit 3 consecutive fours in the 19th over. He did not stop here and took the team closer to victory by hitting 1 four and 1 six in the last over, but could not win. In this match, he scored a total of 55 runs facing 28 balls. During this, he hit 10 fours and sixes in the last 18 balls of his innings. At the same time, there was a partnership of 50 runs for the 10th wicket, which is also the record for the biggest partnership for the last wicket in T20 for New Zealand.