Registering a dominating win of 4-1 in the five-match ODI series against New Zealand in their own den is one of the toughest tasks Team India has done in recent times. The Blackcaps had no answers to most of the assaults of the Indian team. The hosts were thumped by the ‘Men in Blue’ quite dominatingly as apart from the last ODI, all the games were one-sided affairs.
This is the first-ever instance when India won four matches in an ODI series in New Zealand. There were some great performances on display from players of both the teams in this series. However, it was the Indian players who performed better collectively than the New Zealand team and the results were quite evident.
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Here is the combined XI from both the teams after the ODI series:
(Openers)
Shikhar Dhawan (India)
Despite having some bad performances in the last two ODIs of the series, it wasn’t easy for Shikhar Dhawan to counter such swinging conditions. In the first three ODIs (first two in particular), Dhawan showed how lethal a player he can be. He was comfortable driving the ball, he timed it well and got big scores.
One has to consider the fact that Shikhar didn’t have the best of series against Australia and doing well in New Zealand conditions has never been easy. He registered the scores of 75*, 66 and 28 in the first three ODIs and he was hitting the ball extremely well. The left-hander finished as the second highest run-scorer in the series with 187 runs at an average of 47.
Tom Latham (New Zealand)
It’s wasn’t easy to leave out MS Dhoni from the eleven. He might have made it into this eleven had he not injured himself. Even though he was brilliant behind the stumps, he only batted in two innings and scored 49 runs at an average of 49. Thus, Tom Latham, who got sufficient amount of runs under his belt was picked in this eleven. Latham had played a role of an opener earlier for the Kiwis and this position also complements his style of batting as well. He amassed 133 runs in four innings at an average of 33.25 and did a decent job behind the stumps.
