As it happened - India vs New Zealand, Men's T20 World Cup, Super 12s

India’s chances of making the semi-finals of the 2021 T20 World Cup is veering into it’s complicated territory after their comprehensive defeat at the hands of New Zealand on Sunday.

They're now relying on Afghanistan to beat New Zealand and then having to beat Afghanistan by a huge margin to stay alive. It's not impossible, but it's now out of their hands.

Special performance by New Zealand, especially their spinners, Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner, whose eight overs cost only 32 runs and produced the wickets of the two biggest batters in the opposition: Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

When one team's spinners do well, there is automatically a lot of pressure on the other team's spinner to do well as well. And it goes like triple if the other team is India because of the expectations they carry.

Ravindra Jadeja came in hoping to replicate what Mitchell Santner did earlier in the night but this is what happened.

In Jadeja's defence, it appears there may be dew out on the field now. Santner and Sodhi didn't have to deal with that.

In Sodhi and Santner's defence, they never bowled that first ball - the tossed up in the slot ball - that went for six. Avoiding that is the key for any spinner trying to tie a team down.

A front-foot six really messes up a spinner's spell. They have to address it. And quickly when defending a total of 110. And there's a big chance that in that pressure the ball they're trying to bowl - flatter and into the wicket - becomes short and hittable. That's what happened to Jadeja.

Sodhi and Santner concentrated on never allowing the batter to get underneath them. Take the wicket of Kohli for example. He tried to hit them out of the park but the legbreak dipped on him and he ended up caught at long-on. New Zealand's success tonight was built on their spinners focusing on a length that was neither full enough for the front foot heave nor short enough for the back foot cuts and pulls. They consistently hit the spot between these two lengths and took away all of India's leverage.

Knowing they have zero margin for error, India have gone to the two likeliest bowlers to pick up wickets.

Jasprit Bumrah, who delivers by deceiving Martin Guptill with a slower ball. And Varun Chakravarthy, whose mystery spin is keeping the batters honest.

New Zealand don't have any scoreboard pressure on them. So they can play these bowlers out and with Kane Williamson at the crease that is exactly what they're doing. 30 for 1 in five overs.

And it's a fair distance off what India have been able to defend in T20 cricket. Ignore the first entry, that was an eight-over game.

Early wickets - as they often do - ripped up their batting blueprint. India rely on good starts to put up big totals and when they don't get em, well...

The middle order needed to stand up today but the threat of losing even more wickets and finding themselves in an even worse situation pegged them back.

All that talk of fearless batting - well this wasn't it. They weren't allowed to be it by a sublime New Zealand team. Especially Ish Sodhi (4-0-17-2) and Mitchell Santner (4-0-15-0). There were 71 balls between boundaries.

Adam Milne began giving away 15 runs in his first over. Since then, he's gone 3-0-15-1.

That's a result of all the wickets India have lost, allowing Kane Williamson to bring back the under-fire fast bowler and unleash him against newer batters.

Milne bowled his second over tonight on the back of a wicket taken by Sodhi - Rohit gone - and that over went for only two runs.

New Zealand have done most things right in this innings. They have been in control all through. The quickies hitting the pitch and taking pace off. The spinners rarely giving any room. Brilliant stuff and it continues with Trent Boult picking up two wickets in the 19th over. India 94 for 7.

India have gone 71 balls between boundaries in this innings. They scored one to start the sixth over. They topped that up only off the last ball of the 17th over.

Gaurav Sundararaman takes the floor: Virat Kohli's struggles against spin is a very weird one. He hardly gets out to them but hardly scores as well. It is the opposite of how one must approach spinners in the shorter format. This problem seems to be a recent one. Since September 2020, there have been 32 batters who have faced 300 balls against spin. Only 2 players ( Mahmudullah and Mohammad Naim) score slower against spin than Kohli. This could be due to the real tough pitches that are given to Bangladesh batters.

Kohli strikes at 102 and hits a six once every 41 balls. Interestingly Pant and Rahul are worse than Kohli in terms of six hitting and not too far away in terms of strike rate as well. Rahul strikes at 106 while Pant strikes at 108. In terms of averages , Kohli is ranked 6th with an average of 51.66. The players above him are Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Kane Williamson, Devon Conway and Glenn Philips. Barring Kohli all of them strike in excess of 120.

While Kohli does not get out he also does not score quickly, meaning he adds pressure on the rest of the line-up.While teams like West Indies and England have genuine spin hitters in the middle order, it seems like India have not planned enough for that. Their best spin hitters are Suryakumar Yadav who is missing this game and Shikhar Dhawan (who is not part of the squad). If India are to move forward in this format they need to get more spin hitting specialists.

Sodhi in the 16th over

Sodhi in the 14th over

Santner in the 12th over

Sodhi in the 11th over

Santner in the 10th over

Sodhi in the eighth over

Santner in the seventh over

Santner in the fourth over

India will be betting it all on the death overs now. Or not. Virat Kohli has gone for a big shot to start the 11th over and he's caught at long-on.

That's a wicket against the run of play, simply because for the last 14 balls, India seemed content to simply nudge it along.

They were playing like they understood what had to be done.

Batting in the UAE - especially in this pitch - has been tough at the start of an innings but later on, around the 15th over, the dew starts to set in, and runs start to flow. In those conditions, India will have backed themselves to score at 12-14 an over.

Now, with their captain and best anchor player gone, leaving only the hitters left, those plans may well need some tweaking.

There was one big over - the fourth from Adam Milne - and since then New Zealand have been un-hittable.

Mitchell Santner's left-arm skidders have done the job they were meant to. Tying batters down to singles and twos.

At the other end, Ish Sodhi comes on and does that thing that all legspinners can do. Pick up wickets with rank long hops. He has Rohit heaving one to long-on, the ball skidding onto the batter, robbing him of a bit of his usual power.

Dubai is a big size ground. Clearing it takes a big size effort.

So now what do India do? They know the dew is coming. They know they need an above par total. They've lost too many wickets for that to happen, but they do have players capable of rising to the occasion, starting with Virat Kohli, who by now has decided to drop anchor and bat the whole 20 overs and allow hitters like Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya to just keep going.

India need something in the range of 140 to make a match of this. 43 for 3 after nine overs.

It's the old firm again.

Both of them were ditched in the last T20 World Cup campaign. It was the talk of the town when New Zealand turned up in Nagpur five years ago with three spinners and none of Tim Southee and Trent Boult.

But here, in the UAE, they've been responsible for both the wickets New Zealand have picked up in the powerplay.

It's not swing and seam. None of that magic. It's fast bowling stripped to its basics. Boult targeted Kishan's stumps and got lucky when the batter hoicked him straight to deep square leg. Southee banged it into the pitch and cramped Rahul, who went for the big shot inspite of that and was caught on the boundary too.

Tight bowling - enabled by Mitchell Santner at the other end going at a barely believable 2-0-4-0 - has the Black Caps ahead at this stage. India 37 for 2 in seven overs

He was the original. The first since Shane Bond. The speed demon with that long, bustling run-up. Beautiful, high leap. And a powerful release. Adam Milne seemed like a genetically-engineered fast bowler.

There was a series right here in the Emirates in 2014 when he was vicious to play against, beating even the best of Pakistan's batters with sheer pace, and as unbelievable as it sounds now, bounce too.

Since then, injuries have dogged his career, leaving him on the medic's table more often than on top of his mark. It's been a long road back for the fast bowler, rising up the ranks through his performances in the BBL, under Shane Bond's own coaching, and the Hundred in England.

He hasn't made a very good first impression in this match though, dropping an easy catch to reprieve Rohit Sharma. India could have been 12 for 2 in three overs. Instead they are 1 for 1 after four.

Milne is asked to make up for his mistake, and although he does tickle the speed gun all the way to 146 kph, this is the result.

When India lost to Pakistan and it was suggested in the press conference that Ishan should replace Rohit, Kohli started laughing.

Tonight he's kinda taken that suggestion to heart. Both men are in the XI, but it is Kishan who is opening the batting.

Rohit does have experience batting in the middle order - he came up the ranks playing that role, but every time he tries that, especially in the IPL, it gave a feeling that the Mumbai Indians were sacrificing a strength to solve a problem.

Rohit's record (30ish avg and 130ish SR) doesn't change too much even when his place in the batting order does.

That's one of the reasons why Kohli was focused on a good start, so that he and his bowlers have that 20-25 run cushion later in the game. Ishan Kishan's inclusion will certainly help in that regard, especially if he is unleashed in the powerplay. He is one of those India players who can hit sixes from ball one. It's the reason he was picked in this squad and it's what India are banking on tonight.

Tails calls Kane Williamson, and it is tails. New Zealand choose to bowl, with a mind on the dew that sets in later in the evening and yesterday's early movement on offer. Adam Milne comes in for Tim Seifert. Devon Conway will keep wicket.

India wanted to bowl first as well and are now focused on keeping wickets in hand to get those extra 20-25 runs. Virat Kohli says his team is itching to get back on the field after a seven-day break. Suryakumar Yadav has a back spasm. He misses out and Ishan Kishan comes in and will bat at the top of the order. Shardul Thakur replaces Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Ishan Kishan, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Jasprit Bumrah

New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Daryl Mitchell, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Devon Conway (wk), 5 Glenn Phillips, 6 James Neesham, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Tim Southee, 9 Adam Milne, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Trent Boult

Tonight's match will be played on the same pitch as the one from the England-Australia game. You know, the one which had a very noticeable sprinkling of grass and produced a first-innings powerplay score of 21 for 3.

Trent Boult and company are excellent at milking every little bit of help available in a surface, mostly because they have been trained to. They play most of their cricket in conditions that start out fun - with the ball zig-zagging all over the place - and then turn very very docile. It's strike early or not at all.