India defeated New Zealand by 53 runs to win the first ODI under D/L method at Napier on Tuesday (March 3). Earlier electing to bat first in a rain-reduced 38-over match, India scored a challenging total of 273. Indian skipper MS Dhoni led the team from the front by scoring 84 runs.

 

Apart from Dhoni, Virender Shewag and Suresh Raina also scored half centuries. Raina scored 66 runs in just 39 deliveries while Shewag blasted 77 off 56 balls. Dhoni remained not out to ensure that India can accumulate more runs in the final overs with equal help from Yusuf Pathan who scored 20 off 10 balls.

 

After Duckworth Lewis method, the target was revised to 278 for the Kiwis. Chasing such a massive target, New Zealand got two early blows when Brendon McCullum (0) and Jesse Ryder (11) got out to Praveen Kumar. After their dismissals, Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor tried to rescue the Kiwi innings. But Taylor was picked up by part-timer Yusuf Pathan after scoring 30 runs. After that, came Grant Elliott who also could not contribute much and returned to the pavilion with a score of 11 runs.

 

When Guptill was playing at 49, rain came down again and the match was further reduced to 28 overs and the target was revised to 216. When the match resumed Guptill gave out all his efforts to pull out the match for New Zealand but the arrival of ace spinner Harbhajan Singh demolished all hopes. Harbhajan took three wickets in one over including Guptill (64), Broom (2) and Mills (0) to take Indian closer to victory.