Team India huffed and puffed their way to a 6-wicket win in the second T20I against New Zealand, chasing a paltry target of 100 as the surface at Lucknow’s Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium has come under the scanner. Team India skipper Hardik Pandya reckoned that 120 would have been a winning total on a pitch that was turning square and the batters were finding it really difficult to play through the line. The New Zealand innings crawled to 99 before the Men in Blue took 9.5 overs to chase it down as Hardik said that it was a shocking wicket, especially for T20 cricket.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Hardik said that he doesn’t mind difficult surfaces but the one in Lucknow and even in the first T20I in Ranchi is not made for T20 cricket and the curators and the groundsmen should take a little more responsibility and should prepare the wickets in advance.
“To be honest, this was a shocker of a wicket. Two games the kind of wickets we have played on. I don’t mind difficult wickets. I am all up for that, but these two wickets are not made for T20. Somewhere down the line the curators or the stadium whichever we are going to play in T20, they should make sure they prepare the pitches earlier, rather than having a couple of games there,” Hardik Pandya said.
All the bowlers chipped in for the hosts as New Zealand’s innings never got going. All the Kiwi batters struggled and it was the same for India too. If not for a 100-run target, this could have easily slipped out of the Men in Blue’s hands but skipper Hardik himself and his deputy Suryakumar Yadav kept calm to take their side through. The hosts were reduced to 70/4 before Hardik joined Surya in the middle and the two kept rotating the strike and got the important boundary when they needed.
Speaking about the thought process during the chase, Hardik said that the main thing was to keep composure and not buckle down under pressure while minimising risks. “I always believed that we’ll be able to finish the game, but it went quite late. All these games are important. You don’t need to panic because it was about rotating the strike rather than taking the pressure. That’s exactly what we did. Rather than taking risks, we followed our basics and kind of kept things simple,” he said.
Team India levelled the three-match series 1-1, with both teams having all to play for in the decider in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, February 1.
