Matt Henry recorded a career-best 6 for 27 and Will Young struck a personal-best 125 off 108 balls on Friday to lead New Zealand to a 244-run victory over India in the fourth one-day international at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui. After New Zealand posted 333 all out in 50 overs, Henry bowled a triple-wicket maiden in the first over of the chase to help dismiss India for 89 in 26.4 overs, cutting India’s series lead to 2-1.
The 244-run margin was India’s second-biggest defeat by runs in ODI history and their heaviest loss in the format in 26 years, according to the Press Trust of India via NDTV Sports. The result keeps the five-match series alive ahead of Sunday’s finale at the same venue, preventing India from clinching the trophy with a game to spare.
Henry’s triple-wicket opening over
Returning from a leg injury that kept him out of most of the T20 internationals and concussion precautions after colliding with teammate Devon Conway before the series, Henry stayed back with the ODI squad to prove his fitness ahead of New Zealand’s upcoming Test matches. He immediately dismantled India’s top order in the opening six balls of the 334-run chase.
Henry squared up Rohit Sharma with his very first delivery, seaming the ball away off a good length to take the outside edge to Finn Allen at first slip for a first-ball golden duck. Four balls later, after beating Virat Kohli’s outside edge, Henry wobbled the seam to nip a delivery back in that stayed low and hit Kohli’s stumps for a four-ball duck.
On the final ball of the over, Henry trapped stand-in captain Shreyas Iyer on the crease and beat his inside edge. Umpire Kumar Dharmasena initially ruled Iyer not out, but New Zealand used the Decision Review System (DRS, the technology used to challenge on-field officiating calls) to overturn the call and leave India at 0 for 3.
Filling in for regular skipper Shubman Gill, Iyer became the first Indian player to score a golden duck on his ODI captaincy debut, ESPNcricinfo reported. It was only the second time in ODI history that both Rohit and Kohli were dismissed for zero in the same innings, after a 2010 match against Sri Lanka in Dambulla, while Rohit became the seventh Indian batter dismissed on the first ball of an ODI innings.
India took 17 balls to score a run off Henry, and Kyle Jamieson compounded the damage at the other end. Using his height to extract extra bounce and seam movement, Jamieson had Ruturaj Gaikwad caught by Michael Bracewell for 5 off 13 balls to reduce India to 9 for 4 in the sixth over. Jamieson nearly had a second wicket when Nick Kelly dropped a point catch off Axar Patel, finishing his six-over opening spell with 1 for 12 and two maidens.
Ishan Kishan (27 off 53 balls) and Axar (21 off 36) added 44 runs for the fifth wicket before fast bowler Matthew Fisher ended the stand on his way to figures of 3 for 31 in seven overs. Naman Dhir (21 off 24, with two sixes) was the only other Indian batter to reach double digits.
Henry returned to wrap up the tail, bowling three left-handed batters to secure his first ODI six-wicket haul and Player of the Match honors in 9.4 overs. While the International Cricket Council match report listed Henry’s final three wickets as Kishan, Kuldeep Yadav and Gurnoor Brar, NDTV Sports’ ball-by-ball commentary reported that Henry ended the innings by bowling Arshdeep Singh with a yorker.
Young’s 125 sets up New Zealand’s 333
Earlier, after Iyer won the toss and opted to field, Young capitalized on two dropped catches on 5 off Auqib Nabi’s bowling to anchor New Zealand’s innings. Young and Tim Seifert put together an 85-run opening partnership, New Zealand’s first opening stand of 50 or more in their last eight ODIs.
Seifert struck 58 off 48 balls with six fours and three sixes, becoming the first New Zealand batter since Martin Guptill in 2015 to reach an ODI half-century within the first 10 overs. It was also Seifert’s maiden fifty in the format.
Gurnoor Brar broke the opening stand with short-pitched fast bowling, and left-arm spinner Axar Patel had Nick Kelly stumped and Auqib Nabi removed Dean Foxcroft—both called up for players away at New Zealand’s Test camp—to slow the scoring in the middle overs. Young then joined forces with a third replacement, Finn Allen, to attack wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav in his first appearance of the tour.
Young and Allen added 90 runs in just over 10 overs for the fourth wicket before Rohit took a diving low catch to his right at short cover to dismiss Allen for 41 off 30 balls (five fours, two sixes). Young reached his fifty in 49 balls and accelerated to 124 off 106, hitting Kuldeep for overs of nine and 12 runs before sweeping India’s sixth bowler, Naman Dhir, to substitute fielder Kumar Kushagra at deep midwicket for 125 (14 fours, four sixes).
Moments later, Dhir ran in from deep midwicket to take a diving catch that removed Bracewell off another Brar short ball. Mitchell Santner (24 off 29, including two sixes off Axar), Kristian Clarke (22 off 22) and Jamieson (19 not out off 21) pushed New Zealand to 333, even as India took 6 for 77 in the final 13.1 overs. Axar led India’s bowlers with 2 for 39 in 10 overs, alongside two wickets apiece for Nabi (2 for 59) and Brar (2 for 69), and one each for Dhir (1 for 29) and Arshdeep (1 for 55), while Kuldeep finished with 0 for 73 in eight overs.
Series background and Sunday’s finale
As background, India arrived in Mount Maunganui holding a 2-0 series lead after winning the opener in Auckland by five wickets and the second match in Wellington by four runs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method (the formula used to recalculate targets in rain-shortened cricket matches), before rain washed out the third ODI in Hamilton on Tuesday without a ball bowled.
The fifth and final ODI is scheduled for Sunday, November 15, at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui, where New Zealand will try to level the series 2-2 without Henry and Jamieson as both bowlers depart for the two-match Test series starting November 19 in Wellington and November 27 in Christchurch.