Following his side's hard-fought six-wicket win over New Zealand in the second T20I, India skipper Hardik Pandya said that the game went down the wire and the surface was a "shocker of a wicket", which is not suitable for the shorter format.
It was indeed a different version of Suryakumar batting on Lucknow pitch as in a rare case, he failed to cross the strike rate of 100 and ended his innings at an SR of 83.87
The bounce and turn on the Lucknow wicket was such that both sides struggled to score runs. Even T20 specialists like Finn Allen and Suryakumar Yadav struggled to strike at their usual strike rate. 10-15 extra runs from Kiwis could have pushed India to go harder with the bat
The match was an extremely low-scoring affair and saw both sides struggling for runs on a spin-friendly track. Even a chase of 100 runs went down till the last over.
New Zealand leads the three-match T20I series 1-0. They had defeated Men in Blue in the first match by 21 runs, which saw a fighting half-century from all-rounder Washington Sundar go in vain. They will be looking forward to downing Men in Blue in their own territory and win the series
The all-rounder mentioned that the wicket was not a 177-run wicket that was achieved by the Kiwiw team. Pandya however, mentioned that the hosts were in the reckoning until he was out with Suryakumar Yadav in the middle.
India got off to a poor start as in the very first over of the innings Michael Bracewell dismissed Ishan Kishan for 4. In the second over of the game, Men in Blue lost their second batter as Rahul Tripathi returned to the pavilion