Tim Seifert hit 93 off 50 balls and Glenn Phillips finished unbeaten on 65 as New Zealand chased 192 with 12 balls to spare in Hamilton, beating India by seven wickets. India still took the five-match series 3-2, while Phillips ended it with 341 runs.
Hamilton, New Zealand: India had already won the series, and the final night at Seddon Park showed what a dead rubber can still produce. Mitchell Santner won the toss and chose to bowl, Adam Milne struck twice in the powerplay, and by the end New Zealand had turned a 191-run target into a procession of boundaries.
Kishan and Iyer drag India back
Milne removed Abhishek Sharma for 1 and Sanju Samson for 4, and India were 19 for 2. Ishan Kishan and captain Shreyas Iyer then changed the innings. Their third-wicket stand was worth 93 in 43 balls. Kishan made 61 off 32 balls with five fours and five sixes before Nathan Smith held a catch off Blair Tickner. Iyer hit 50 off 23, with three fours and four sixes, and fell to Smith with Seifert taking the catch.
Milne leads the fightback
New Zealand pulled India back once the pair had gone. Naman Dhir made 33 off 23 balls and Nitish Kumar Reddy added 22 off 17, but wickets kept falling and India finished on 191 for 8. Milne ended with 4 for 19 from his four overs. Smith took 2 for 28 and Tickner 2 for 38. It was a decent total, and it was not a safe one.
Seifert sets the chase alight
Finn Allen was out for 2, caught by Kishan off Arshdeep Singh, and the chase could have wobbled. Instead Seifert took over. He added 73 with Daryl Mitchell, whose 29 off 16 balls included four sixes, then put on 86 with Phillips. Seifert hit 11 fours and five sixes in his 93 before Reddy bowled him in the 16th over with New Zealand on 168 for 3. He missed a century by seven runs, but the match was already beyond India.
Phillips finishes a record series
Phillips was left to close it out and did so in style, unbeaten on 65 off 38 balls with eight fours and three sixes. His winning boundary in the 18th over made it 195 for 3. It also capped a series in which he scored 82 not out, 70, 17, 107 and 65 not out, 341 runs in all. Match reports describe that as a record for a bilateral T20I series, past the 331 scored by England’s Phil Salt.
India had taken the first three matches, with Abhishek Sharma’s century in Wellington sealing the series. New Zealand then won in Auckland, where Phillips’ 107 off 49 set up an 87-run win, and repeated the dose in Hamilton. The tour now moves on to the ODIs.
Result: New Zealand 195/3 in 18 overs (Tim Seifert 93, Glenn Phillips 65*, Daryl Mitchell 29) beat India 191/8 in 20 overs (Ishan Kishan 61, Shreyas Iyer 50, Naman Dhir 33; Adam Milne 4/19) by seven wickets with 12 balls remaining. India won the five-match series 3-2.
