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A superb spell of bowling from New Zealand’s slow left-arm spinner (6-57) helped The Black Caps beat India by 25 runs in a thriller at the Wankhede Stadium. Winning the toss, visiting captain Tom Latham opted to bat first.

With nothing for India to play for except pride, Rohit Sharma’s men restricted New Zealand to 235 all-out. Will Young (71), Daryl Mitchell (82) and skipper Latham (28) were the only men to have made any contributions of genuine note.

India’s spinners Ravi Jadeja (5-65) and Washington Sundar were the chief tormentors with the ball for the home side. In response, the hosts fared a little better thanks to Shrubman Gill (90), Rishabh Pant (60), and Yashasvi Jaiswal (30).

That helped get the home side up to 263 all out, a slender of just 28. In New Zealand’s second innings, they could only muster 174. Will Young followed his fifty in the first innings with another in the second innings (51).

Daryl Mitchell, who scored the highest in the first innings, made a very valuable 21 and was supported by Glen Philips (26) and Devon Conway (22) at the top of the order.

That meant Tom Latham’s Black Caps finished on 174 all out, which meant India just needed 146 runs to win. The victory was India’s waiting to happen, right?

Not quite. At 21-5, 46 all out was on the cards for India. To their credit, however, they dug deep. Rishabh Pant (64) was playing like he was on a different surface as he started an impressive counter-attack to help his side get closer to the winning line.

Pant would perish, however, with 40 needed. Despite Ravi Ashwin and Sundar digging deep by putting 15 for the eighth wicket, once Ashwin was out caught behind by Tom Blundell, the procession followed very quickly, it seemed.

Akash Deep was out from the first ball he faced. Then, at the start of the following over, Washington Sundar tried a heaver over cover, only to expose his stumps and have them cleaned and bowled.

So India were all for 121 all out, losing this one by 25 runs. This is the first time that New Zealand has beaten the T20 World Champions 3-0 in a test series. Although this defeat was painful, it didn’t see India go out of the running for qualifying for the final of the World Test Championship.

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