India vs New Zealand 2019: Battle of the Heavyweights

The destiny of the teams in the hands of their leaders

After the successful tour of Australia, Team India now embarks on a tour of New Zealand to play 5 ODIs and 3 T20I. The first of the five ODIs starts at Napier on Wednesday, the 23rd January 2019.

For India, the tour of New Zealand won’t be as effortless as Australia. India just can’t brush aside New Zealand in the same manner they enforced on a depleted Australia. The Indian players themselves know how difficult it would be to win a series against New Zealand in New Zealand.

To start with, India has an unsettled team composition. The absence of Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya will be felt more in New Zealand than in Australia. Plus the poor form of players like Shikhar Dhawan and Ambati Rayudu is not going to help India’s cause.

On the other hand, New Zealand is at its full strength with all main players available for selection. However, the one factor that would be in favour of the Indians is the wickets in New Zealand that are expected to be batsman-friendly. India has triumphed in the past in such scenarios. The batsman-friendly conditions would help India to mask its bowling weakness and prevail upon purely on the source of its batting might if Kohli wins the toss.

If the situation is reversed with bowler-friendly conditions, the Indian batsmen would find it difficult to complement the efforts of their bowlers. On the basis of the scores recorded in the recently concluded series between New Zealand and Sri Lanka, one can safely say the batsmen from both the teams are going to determine the course of the upcoming series. Another factor in favour of Team India is their winning momentum.

From day one, New Zealand has been a team with very few match-winners who could combine together to play effectively as a team. That has been the secret behind New Zealand’s success in white-ball cricket and this series will be no different. However, there are some heavyweights from both the teams who will be pitted against each other in the forthcoming series. There will be battles within battles that would entice more attention to the series. This article is about the battle of such heavyweights in the series.

Battle of Heavyweights

#5 Bhuvneshwar Kumar vs Tim Southee – The opening bowlers who open up matches

Bhuvi will be the go-to bowler for Kohli

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has found form in the series against Australia. He took 8 wickets in 3 matches in the ODIs. He had a strong hold on the Australian captain Aaron Finch who failed to spot his in-swingers on all 3 occasions. 6 of Bhuvi’s 8 wickets were that of the Australian top order. In the second ODI at Adelaide, Bhuvi showed his skills as a death bowler and finished with 4 for 45.

Bhuvi would very well know the difference between bowling to an out-of-form opener and a make-shift opener to two totally different attacking opening batsmen. But the onus will be on him to make early inroads on the New Zealand batting line-up to steer the two best New Zealand batsmen early to the crease.

As the leader of the bowling attack, Kohli would be looking upon to Bhuvi to make a break-through every time he comes to the bowling crease.

Tim Southee - The Champion bowler for the Kiwis

Tim Southee’s job against the Indian batsmen is nonetheless facile. He is up against two destructive opening-batsmen in Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan. Fortunately, he has his long term bowling partner Trent Boult by his side to apply equal pressure on the Indian batsmen. Like Bhuvi, Southee too is a terrific death bowler.

Both teams would be depending upon their premier fast bowlers to show their way in the series.

#4 Kuldeep Yadav/ Yuzvendra Chahal vs Ish Sodhi – The spinners’ huddle

Kuldeep and Chahal - The stumbling block for New Zealand

Yuzvendra Chahal recorded the best bowling figures for an Indian spinner in Australia when he claimed 6 for 42 in the decider against Australia at Melbourne. Earlier, his wrist-spin partner Kuldeep Yadav took 5 wickets in the rain-affected last Test match at Sydney. Both are in good form in recent times and could be a handful if they operate in tandem.

Unfortunately for India, the continued absence of Hardik Pandya will negate that option and as such the two wrist-spinners will be rotated over the 5 ODIs in the series. Whoever finds himself in the playing XI, would definitely make an impact on the game with his wicket-taking abilities in the middle-overs.

The tactic for Kohli would be to introduce one wrist-spinner at a time and replace him with the other as the series moves on. That way the Kiwi batsmen would be left to wonder about the mystery surrounding these two gifted wrist-spinners right through the series.

Ish Sodhi - The surprise weapon

Ish Sodhi is not in the same class as the Indian spinners. But he has been in terrific form in the series against Sri Lanka when he took 8 wickets in 3 matches. Besides, the Indian batsmen would be tempted to break free against Ish Sodhi after facing the relentless bowling of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Lockie Ferguson which might bring Sodhi into play.

There will be a carnival of leg-spinners on show in the series who could dictate the middle-overs and thereby the series.

#3 Rohit Sharma vs Martin Guptill – The Hitman Vs The Hitter

Rohit Sharma - The smiling hitman

Rohit Sharma has achieved the rare feat of scoring 1000 runs in ODIs during 2018. He is currently ranked at No 2 in ICC ODI rankings.

Rohit started the new year in grand style scoring a hundred in the first match of the year. Rohit is known for his big hundreds and out of his 22 hundred, on 14 occasions he has scored more than 125 runs including 3 double hundreds.

The beauty about Rohit Sharma is that once he survives the initial 30 balls of his innings, he would stay foot to score big. He has the game to change gears suddenly and make good the time lost. In the present Indian team, no one could match Rohit Sharma’s six-hitting abilities and he is renowned for his trademark mammoth sixes.

In every series, there will be a couple of matches where he will take his team home single-handedly. India’s fortune in the series against New Zealand would revolve around the top-order batting more particularly of Rohit Sharma.

Martin Guptill - The impact player at the top

Martin Guptill is made of the same cast like Rohit Sharma. He is an aggressive opener who could make use of the powerplay to his advantage. He believes in providing flying starts to his team and is equally adept to both pace and spin. Guptill has an ODI double century to his credit.

In 2018, Guptill was out of action for 10 months and on his comeback match against Sri Lanka, he scored a hundred. Guptill has been a consistent performer against India in the past and the fact that he is playing on his home turf would make him deadly dangerous.

#2 M.S. Dhoni vs Ross Taylor – The Ultimate finisher vs The long run finisher

Dhoni - The finisher is not finished yet

The year 2019 so far belonged to M.S. Dhoni. Against all odds, Dhoni scored 51,55 not out and 87 not out against Australia to enable India to win the series 2-1. Dhoni had shown a lot of temperament to anchor the Indian innings in the middle-order all the way to the finish line. He was unfazed by the mounting run-rate and kept things under control with his customary fashion of taking the game deep into the last over.

The promotion of Dhoni to No 4 position has given him a wonderful opportunity to ease himself into his innings without bothering much about the pace of his innings. The batting friendly conditions and the small grounds in New Zealand would enable Dhoni to improve upon his strike rate which at present is hobbling around 75.

The confidence that he would gain as a result of such increased strike rate would make him the first choice at No 4 even while chasing huge scores or even when batting first.

The continuous success of Dhoni at No 4 in the upcoming series would put an end to India’s most perennial problem going into the World Cup.

Ross Taylor - The real threat for Team India

Ross Taylor, like Dhoni, is a seasoned campaigner. Unlike Dhoni, Taylor is a regular No 4 for New Zealand for ages. He is the senior-most batsman in this New Zealand line-up. The opposition is never guaranteed of a win as long as Taylor is at the crease. Taylor exhibited his match-winning expertise last year against England when he scored an unbeaten 181 off 147 balls in the decider at Dunedin. From a score of 2 for 2, Taylor took charge of the chase of 336 and finished off the match in the last over.

Taylor has been in excellent form against Sri Lanka with scores of 54, 90 & 137. In ICC ODI rankings for batsmen, Taylor is ranked at No 3 and he would be the real threat for India in the series.

#1 Virat Kohli Vs Kane Williamson – First among equals

King Kohli - The undisputed leader

Virat Kohli had been in the form of his life in 2018 when he managed to complete 1000 runs in both Test match and ODI cricket. In 2019, Kohli scored his 39th ODI hundred in the second ODI against Australia at Adelaide which enabled India to level the series.

As a leader, Kohli has achieved the impossible by winning both the Test series and the bilateral ODI series against Australia in Australia. In the process, he became the first Indian captain to successfully do so. Kohli is the No 1 ranked batsman in ICC ratings both in Test matches as well as ODIs.

Willaimson - The jewel in the Kiwi crown

Like Kohli, Williamson is the No.1 match-winner of his team and the inspirational leader. Unlike Kohli, Williamson is more of an impassive performer, more in the making of a Dhoni than a Kohli. But behind his expressionless face, there lies his resolve to succeed in any challenging situation. Williamson is coming off from a decent series against Sri Lanka with scores of 76,1 & 55.

In the last series between the two teams in New Zealand in 2014, it was Williamson who outclassed Kohli, though marginally. That was reflected in the final results of that series which New Zealand won comfortably.

This series could very well be pronounced by the accomplishment of the two rip-roaring leaders of the two teams. All in all, an exciting series is on the cards.