IND vs NZ 4th ODI: Matt Henry stuns Team India with six-wicket haul

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India had a game to forget at the Bay Oval on Friday, putting down three straightforward catches, losing three wickets in the first over of their stiff chase, presenting the excellent Matt Henry with career-best figures, crashing to 89 all out and suffering their second heaviest defeat (by 244 runs) in terms of runs.

Shreyas Iyer couldn’t have asked for a worse start to his brief regime as stand-in captain. Apart from the toss, nothing went right for him in the fourth One-Day International as New Zealand totally bossed the exchanges to cut India’s lead to 1-2 in the five-match showdown, ahead of the final encounter on Sunday at the same venue.

NZ’s Will Young celebrates his century against India in Mount Maunganui  on Friday

While Henry was the undisputed star of the show, the damage in the first half of the match had been done by Will Young, the opener who was Player of the Series when the Kiwis coasted to a shock 3-0 Test series win in India two years back. The right-hander was dropped on five off successive deliveries from Auqib Nabi in the second over of the match, by Rohit Sharma at slip and Ishan Kishan behind the stumps, and made India pay with a delectable fifth ODI century studded with crunchy pulls and sweeps of all varieties against Kuldeep Yadav.

Young was the constant in stands of 85 for the first wicket with Tim Seifert and 90 for the fourth with Finn Allen, around which New Zealand constructed an imposing 333, bowled out off the final ball of their innings.

India’s reply was rocked in the very first over when Henry (6-27) packed off Rohit (first ball), Virat Kohli and Shreyas during an outstanding exhibition of seam bowling. Forced to miss the first three games after a collision with Devon Conway before the first ODI, the 34-year-old made the most of the assistance off the surface under the artificial lights, leaving India at sixes and sevens.

The visitors’ only pocket of resistance came through Ishan Kishan and Axar Patel, impressive with the ball the afternoon, who added a far too inadequate 44 for the fifth wicket. Kishan alone handled the seam and swing challenge with some comfort; the rest were blown away in a sorry tale of technical drawbacks and temperamental shortcomings.

Henry produced a series of unplayable deliveries, starting with the late away-going ball that squared up Rohit and induced a catch to slip and the screaming nip-backer that disturbed Kohli’s middle stump. But for the most part, India’s batters showed neither guts nor gumption, an alarming development ahead of Sunday’s decider.

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