New Zealand Beat India by Seven Wickets in Fifth T20I as Seifert Scores 93

New Zealand beat India by seven wickets in the fifth and final T20I at Seddon Park in Hamilton on Sunday, November 1. Chasing 192 to win, New Zealand reached 195 for 3 in 18 overs, with 12 balls to spare. India won the five match series 3-2, after winning the first three matches and losing the last two.

Tim Seifert led the chase. He scored 93 off 50 balls, with 11 fours and 5 sixes, and fell seven runs short of a first T20I century when a delivery from Nitish Kumar Reddy took an inside edge onto his leg stump. By that point New Zealand were close to the target, and Glenn Phillips saw the innings through to the end.

Seifert takes the chase away from India

New Zealand had won the toss and elected to bowl, so their batters knew the full target from the start of the reply. Seifert went at it from the top of the order. His fifty-ball innings kept the asking rate under control and meant India could not build pressure with dot balls or force New Zealand to take risks late in the chase.

The manner of his dismissal summed up how close he came to a landmark score. Seven runs short of a hundred, he got an inside edge onto his leg stump off Reddy. He left the field with the chase nearly done, and with the highest score of the match.

India recover from 19 for 2

India posted 191 for 8 in their 20 overs, a total that looked unlikely early on. They slipped to 19 for 2, and the innings needed a rebuild before it could become a contest.

Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan did that work. Their third wicket partnership was worth 93 runs. Kishan scored 61 off 32 balls and Iyer scored 50 off 23 balls, and between them they turned a bad start into a defendable score on a ground with short boundaries.

Adam Milne kept New Zealand in control with the ball. He took 4 wickets for 19 runs, the best figures of the match, and his wickets stopped India from turning 191 into something larger in the closing overs.

Phillips closes the series with a record

Phillips finished unbeaten on 65 off 38 balls and took New Zealand over the line. The innings closed a strong personal series. Phillips ended the five matches with 341 runs, the most ever scored by a batter in a bilateral T20I series. The previous record was 331, held by Phil Salt.

The result carried a team record as well. The chase was New Zealand's highest successful run chase in T20I cricket against India.

India had already secured the series by winning the first three matches, so Sunday's game decided the final margin rather than the trophy. New Zealand took that margin down to 3-2 with wins in the last two matches, and they leave Hamilton with the record chase, the best bowling figures of the day, and the player who now holds the bilateral series scoring record.