In the first match of the ODI series against New Zealand at the beautiful Himacha Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium in Dharamsala, Indian bowlers thrashed the New Zealand batting in the first innings and Virat Kohli, continuing his tremendous form in the limited over cricket led the team to chase an easy target of 191 runs, resulted into the win by 6 wickets against the visitors and 1-0 lead in the five-match ODI series.

New Zealand, who had lost the Test series 3-0 and failed to do well in the first ODI, will now look to bounce back in the second ODI at Delhi on October 20, 2016.

Chasing the target of under 200, Indian openers Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane played well and gave a nice platform for the upcoming batsmen to build more on it. Virat Kohli, who is in his golden period currently, played a super inning of 85 runs in 81 balls and guided India towards victory. Although the New Zealand pacers managed to send Manish Pandey and the skipper MS Dhoni quickly, it was late for New Zealand as Virat had already took the match away from the Kiwis.

Earlier, the New Zealand batting order just could not hold enough in front of the inexperienced but the lethal bowling attack, which was led by the debutante Hardik Pandya, who took 3 crucial wickets and won the Man of the Match award. Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah, too bowled well and Yadav took 2 wickets.

Among the spinners, Kedar Jadhav took 2 wickets and Amit Mishra also bowled well and managed to send 3 New Zealand batsmen into the pavilion.

While all the batsmen collapsed in front of the Indian bowlers, Tom Latham scored brilliant 79 in 98 deliveries and at the end Tim Southee (55 off 45) took New Zealand to a respectable total.

By Prajakt K.