After whitewashing New Zealand team in the T20 International series, Indian team was dominating and excited for the One Day International series.
The 1st match of the three matches One Day International series between India and New Zealand was played on February 5, Wednesday at Seddon Park, Hamilton. Due to injury in the T20 series, official New Zealand captain Kane Williamson was out for this match, and therefore, batsman Tom Latham was the captain for New Zealand team while Virat Kohli was the Indian skipper.
New Zealand won the toss and decided to field first. Indian team gave opportunities to two new batsmen to open for the team. Youngster Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Aggarwal opened the innings for Indian team. They made a partnership of 50 runs for the first wicket but could not score big runs. Again the Indian skipper balanced the Indian innings and scored a half-century while Shreyas Iyer played a beautiful inning where he scored a brilliant century. Iyer scored brilliant 103 runs with good strike rate. Wicket-keeper batsman KL Rahul again showed his talent, scored not out 88 runs, and helped Indian team to reach a total of 347 runs.
New Zealand showed a calculated chase and brilliant performance first time in the series. Openers gave a solid start of 85 runs. Nicholls played a brilliant inning of 78 runs and unfortunately got run out by Kohli. Experienced player Ross Taylor played one of his best innings and scored a not out match-winning ton of 109 runs. Captain Latham also scored 69 runs and helped New Zealand to chase the target. New Zealand easily won the match in 48 over and took an early lead in this ODI series. Ross Taylor was selected as a player of the match for his brilliant match-winning knock.