In Hamilton, New Zealand batter Ross Taylor was the star performer for his team. He stood tall for the team till the last ball of the game, unlike in the recently-concluded T20I series. His stunning effort has led New Zealand to have the lead of 1-0 in the three-match ODI series.

Virat Kohli’s fifty, Shreyas Iyer maiden ODI hundred, Kohli unbeaten 88* runs knock and Kedar Jadhav quickfire innings led India set a fighting total of 347 runs. But this total looked short in front of today’s Kiwis batting line-up.

However, the hosts lost the wicket of opener Martin Guptill and Tom Blundell inside 20 overs. But skipper Tom Latham and Taylor took the charge of the game. Latham and Ross stitched a remarkable partnership before it was broken by Kuldeep Yadav. Despite skipper’s wicket, Ross carried his game while seeing wickets falling at the other end.

Hamilton has been a happy hunting ground for me: Ross Taylor

In his unbeaten 109-run knock, Taylor struck 10 fours and four sixes. Soon after the game, Taylor answered how he felt after leading the team to chase the target.

“It was nice to get across the line. Restricting them under 350 gave us a chance. We were fortunate with the left-right hand combination and we were able to target the short boundary. Tom came in and took the pressure off me,” he said

“It’s been a happy hunting ground for me. Hopefully, we can put up a good performance in the next game. It was nice to be there at the end after I got out thrice towards the end in the T20 series,” Ross Taylor added

Meanwhile, Henry Nicholls also played a crucial knock at the top. He scored 78 runs off 82 balls.

Now, India will surely like to win the do-or-die, second ODI against New Zealand on 8th February in Auckland.