New Zealand pacer Blair Tickner on Friday said that it was an awesome opportunity to play against Virat Kohli, adding that the Kiwis will find a way to bounce back in the ODI series. Kohli had slammed 74 runs in the 1st ODI as India went on to win the rain-curtailed match by 5 wickets.
“Yeah, he’s obviously going all right. With a small total, he came out and put pressure on us. We looked to take wickets, but he did really well. We still back ourselves and our skills to obviously get him out. But yeah, it’s an awesome opportunity to play against him, and hopefully we can get one over him soon,” Tickner said ahead of the second ODI.
“Obviously, you’d have loved to score more runs and put a little bit more pressure on them… we know that we didn’t get enough runs and with the ball we can be even better,” he added.
New Zealand will also be without opener Devon Conway for the remainder of the series after he suffered a concussion in a freak training-ground accident. “Yeah, he’s been massive for us, obviously. Crazy event at training, but we’re bringing in Kelly, another great player. So it just gives opportunity to other players to stand up like we have throughout. He’s been a few injuries around the last couple of years, but seems every time we have another player come in, they do well. So great opportunity for Nick,” he said.
In the first match, after India’s target was revised to 143 in 32 overs under the DLS method following a couple of rain delays, Kohli and Gill (37) shared a 113-run alliance for the second wicket to take the visitors home. India ended at 143 for five in 22.4 overs after some late fumble.
Earlier, the pace troika of Arshdeep Singh, Gurnoor Brar and Anshul Kamboj made the most of the conditions to rip through New Zealand as India bowled out the hosts for 185 in 40.2 overs. Arshdeep (4/70), Gurnoor (3/44) and Anshul (2/22) exploited the overcast conditions to keep the New Zealand batters on the back foot throughout their innings.
(With agency inputs)
