The 2nd match of India versus New Zealand T20 International series was played on January 26, Sunday, at Eden Park, Auckland. The Kiwi captain Kane Williamson won the toss and chose to bat first.
Kiwi opener Martin Guptill gave a fast start to team and scored 33 runs in just 20 balls, and wicketkeeper-batsman Seifert scored 33 runs too, but no other batsman performed well. New Zealand could reach a total of 132 runs in 20 over with loss of 5 wickets. Ravindra Jadeja took the 2 wickets in his 4 over.
The second innings began with Indian openers KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. Rohit Sharma again failed to score good runs and departed early of the inning. Indian skipper Kohli too got out early, and India lost the top 2 batsmen only at a score of 39. Then KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer played a match-winning partnership of 89 runs and helped team to win the match. KL Rahul scored his third consecutive fifty in T20 Internationals and played a not-out inning of 57 runs in 50 balls. Shreyas Iyer also scored 44 runs in 33 balls. Tim Southee from New Zealand took 2 wickets and tried to fight back. All-rounder Shivam Dube finished the match by hitting a massive six in 18th over having 15 balls spare. New Zealand bowlers showed some courageous effort, but defending 133 against this batting line up of the Indian side was doubtlessly a next to impossible task.
KL Rahul was selected as player of the match and awarded for his match-winning, and an unbeaten knock of 57 runs with 2 sixes and 3 fours. India hit 6 sixes in their chase while New Zealand only hit 5 sixes in their 20 over. India took a 2-0 lead on New Zealand and created a high chance of winning the series.