Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad was filled with blue t-shirts on the day of the T20 World Cup final. India, the co-hosts of the tournaments, crushed New Zealand on a Sunday night to win their third T20 World Cup title.
The 96-run victory over New Zealand was their second straight win in a T20 World Cup final.
Just like the semi-final against England, India were asked to bat first. The indian batters responded with a powerful batting display in the powerplay. Both Indian openers, Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson, had strike rates of over 200.
Sanju Samson found his mojo against the West Indies in the Super 8 and has not looked back since. He has had an epic late run in the T20 World Cup. In the final game, he made 89. Now he has 275 runs off 138 balls from just the last three games.
Abhishek started punishing New Zealand bowlers from the start. In the third over, he hit Jacob Duffy for two consecutive fours. In the fourth over, both openers pummelled Lockie Ferguson for 24 runs. Abhishek launched him over covers, while Samson launched a leading edge over deep third.
Abhishek fell in an over by Rachin Ravindra, but Samson did not slow down. He, along with Ishan Kishan, further accelerated India’s striking. The top three Indian batters made fifties before Neesham controlled the bleeding in the middle overs. Neesham took three wickets in an over to halt the carnage.
In the last over, Shivan Dube took Neesham for 24 runs to take the Indian total to 255-5. India made a mountain of runs that was always going to be difficult to climb for New Zealand.
In response, New Zealand started well and made 31 after 2.3 overs. But Axar Patel had other ideas, and he trapped Finn Allen. After that, the New Zealand team didn’t recover as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Daryl Mitchell and Mitch Santner showed some resistance, but the required run rate was astronomical for them to achieve it.
As always, Jasprit Bumrah was the pick of the bowlers and took 4 wickets for just 15 runs from 4 overs. Axar Patel also bowled well and took crucial wickets. Patel finished with 3 wickets for 27 runs in 3 overs. Pandya, Chakravarthy, and Ahishek Sharma finished with 1 wicket each.
Tim Siefert tried to fight with a 23-ball fifty, but Chakravarthy bagged his wicket with a long hop. With this wicket, Varun kept his place as the leading wicket-taker in the tournament.
