New Zealand delivered a commanding all-round performance to defeat India by 50 runs in the fourth T20I at Visakhapatnam, registering their first victory of the five-match series. Despite entering the match under huge pressure, New Zealand showed courage with the bat and ball to claim their first win. Meanwhile, India’s decision to experiment with their team combination backfired as they suffered their first defeat in the series. With the five-match series already secured, Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav revealed that the team deliberately went into the match with a batter short. India opted to field six specialist batters, including all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who did not bowl during the match.
"We purposely played six batters today. We wanted to have five perfect bowlers and wanted to challenge ourselves. Like, for example, if we're chasing 200 or 180, and we wanted to see if we were two down or three down, how does it look? But then it's fine at the end of the day. And we wanted to play all the players who are part of the World Cup squad. Otherwise, we would have played other ones," Yadav said after the match.
Asked to bat first, New Zealand got off to a flying start following an impressive opening partnership between Tim Seifert and Devon Conway. Seifert scored 62, while Conway made 44 to power New Zealand to 215/7 in 20 overs. Speaking on deciding to chase, Yadav underscored that he wanted the players to challenge themselves.
"We've been batting really well when we've batted first. So I wanted the guys to take that responsibility if we're chasing 180 or 200, and two wickets or three wickets are down, and see how we bat. So it's a good challenge. Hopefully, if we get an opportunity again, we might chase again. But at the end of the day, good learning," he said.