New Zealand defeated India by four wickets in the first One-Day International of the three-match series on Wednesday. Ross Taylor scored an unbeaten hundred while handy contributions from Henry Nicholls and Tom Latham helped New Zealand chase down the 348-run target with 11 balls to spare. It was New Zealand’s first win since India landed in the country with the hosts suffering a humiliating whitewash in the five-match T20 series. The Kiwis were quite comfortable in their chase but lost wickets of Tom Latham (69) and James Neesham (9) and Colin de Grandhomme (1) when they were close to the target. Taylor ensured that the host do not snatch yet another defeat from a strong position. Earlier, sent into bat, Shreyas Iyer (103 off 107 balls) scored his maiden ODI century, while KL Rahul (88 not out) and skipper Virat Kohli (51) made fine fifties in the first match of the three-game series.
Virat Kohli, India captain: It was an outstanding performance by New Zealand. Credit has to be given where its due. We thought 348 was enough. Ross is the most experienced batsman they have. Tom’s innings was something that took the momentum away from us after Nicholls’ dismissal. We didn’t grab on to one chance, but overall we were decent. Won’t say we dished out our best fielding performance today. I think today you have to say that the opposition played better than us and deserved to win. (Shaw and Agarwal) I think they gave us a good start and were both positive, which is a good sign. I think Shreyas Iyer was outstanding today, and KL Rahul was brilliant with the bat. As long as you’re playing good cricket, that’s what matters.
Ross Taylor: It was nice to get across the line. Restricting them under 350 gave us a chance in the match. It has been a happy hunting ground for me. It was nice to be there at the end after I got out thrice towards the end in the T20 series.
Tom Latham: A great performance by the lads. We saw today how hard it is to defend with the left-right combination. It’s nice to make winning contributions. The way Ross Taylor played was fantastic. We weren’t quite where we wanted to be with the ball so we need to improve there.
