Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Team India captain Suryakumar Yadav spoke openly after his team suffered a 50-run defeat against New Zealand in the fourth T20 International on Wednesday. Despite the loss, Suryakumar said the match was part of a bigger plan as the team looked to test itself in pressure situations ahead of the World Cup.India chose to chase after winning the toss, even though they have enjoyed success while batting first in recent matches.
Suryakumar explained that the decision was taken to push the batters and make them take responsibility while chasing big totals.“I feel we purposely played six batters today. We wanted to have five perfect bowlers and wanted to challenge ourselves. Like for example, if we’re chasing 200 or 180, and we wanted to see if we were two down or three down, how does it look? But then it’s fine at the end of the day. And we wanted to play all the players who are part of the World Cup squad. Otherwise, we would have played other ones,” he said in the post-match presentation.He added that the team wanted to test its ability while batting second. “We’ve been batting really well when we’ve batted first. So I wanted the guys to take that responsibility if we’re chasing 180 or 200, and two wickets or three wickets are down and see how we bat. So it’s a good challenge. Hopefully if we get an opportunity again, we might chase again. But at the end of the day, good learning,” Suryakumar added.New Zealand made full use of the batting conditions and posted 215 for seven. Tim Seifert scored a quick 62, and Devon Conway added 44 as the visitors raced to 100 in just over eight overs. India fought back later as Arshdeep Singh and Kuldeep Yadav took two wickets each. Daryl Mitchell then gave New Zealand a late boost with an unbeaten 39 off 18 balls.India’s chase never fully settled despite a strong counterattack. Shivam Dube smashed 65 off 23 balls, while Rinku Singh made 39. However, wickets kept falling, and India were bowled out for 165 in 18.4 overs. New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner starred with the ball, finishing with figures of 3 for 26.
