After the second consecutive loss, New Zealand’s opening batsman, Martin Guptill is hoping to see Jasprit Bumrah having a bad time in the remainder of the ongoing T20I series. The visiting Men in Blue had attained another win in the second game of the five-match T20I series against the Black Caps. In both the T20s, Indian pacer Bumrah has been lethal for the hosts.
After losing the T20I opener, the Kiwi batsmen came in to bat first with the game plan to go past 200-run mark on the second occasion. The batsmen Guptill and Colin Munro initiated a good start and fired quick boundaries to build 48 runs partnership.
However, the Indian bowlers and the slow pitch hindered their way to score big runs. The likes of Ravindra Jadeja and Bumrah restricted the hosts for just 132 runs at the loss of five wickets in 20 overs.
Martin Guptill: ‘It’s hard to get Jasprit Bumrah away. Hopefully, he can have 3 bad games.’
With three wickets going down within 11 overs, New Zealand was already running under high pressure to get the score to at least 170.
Eventually, Bumrah made it difficult for the Black Caps to read his subtle variations. The Indian pace spearhead picked a wicket in the last over of Ross Taylor while conceding 21 runs in four overs.
During the press conference after the 2nd T20I, Guptill regarded Bumrah as one of the ‘best death bowlers’. He is hopeful of seeing Bumrah failing to contribute to the Men in Blue.
“Bumrah is one of the best death bowlers. He has a great slower ball and bouncer. It is hard to get him away. Hopefully, he can have three bad games,” Guptill told reporters.
Bumrah, in the meantime, was well paired with Jadeja who picked two important wickets of the opponents. Jadeja had the best economy rate of 4.50 while giving away just 18 runs in the four overs.
Martin Guptill on Auckland surface:
The aggressive Kiwi opener also asserted that the batsmen couldn’t adjust to the changed slow pitch in the 2nd game. He said that the pitch favoured the spinners more and had him or his opening partner, Munro remained till the 15th over, they could have added 30-40 runs more.
“It was a different wicket to what we played on in the first match. It slowed down a bit, was suiting the spinners more. When I was there with Munro, it was coming on to the bat. We lost momentum after my dismissal, we had to rebuild from there,” he added.
“170 would have been a good score on this wicket, India bowled very well tonight. We had a lot of dot balls. Colin and my role is to be aggressive, one of us needed to stay out there till the 15th over, but that didn’t happen,” said Guptill.
India, on the other hand, did not have the needed start as they lost two most important wickets in the name of Rohit Sharma (8) and Virat Kohli (11).
Nevertheless, the wicketkeeper-batsman, KL Rahul once again proved his importance and secured the game with his record-making gritty-fifty.
Rahul had a crucial partnership with elegant Shreyas Iyer (44). The latter lost his wicket in the 17th over when India required nine runs to win the 2nd T20I.
Now, both teams will play their third T20I at Seddon Park on Wednesday (January 29).