1. Brilliant new ball spell by Henry, Boult
India's top three -- Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli -- have been in good form throughout the tournament. But on this day, they were done in by brilliant spell of fast bowling by Matt Henry and Trent Boult. Henry started the procession when he had Rohit caught behind with a delivery that moved away that bit to take his outside edge. Boult soon dealt another blow when he trapped Kohli leg before with a delivery that came in. KL Rahul, who had a hundred in the last match against Sri Lanka, was in two minds whether to play or leave and Henry managed to find his outside edge en route to Tom Latham behind the wicket. India were 5/3 and the match was pushed away from India.
2. Santner's tight grip
After three frontline medium pacers did a good job, Mitchell Santner, the lone spinner in the side, did fine follow-up work. His first spell 6-1-7-1 applied breaks on Indian scoring and picked up the wicket of dangerous Rishabh Pant too. It was fine effort from Santner against some of the big hitters like Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant and MS Dhoni. Ravindra Jadeja did carted him for couple of sixes but that did not took the sheen away from his outing.
3. Jadeja-Dhoni partnership -- too much to do
Ravindra Jadeja, who was playing his second match of the tournament, and Dhoni came with a superb partnership that belied the sluggish nature of the pitch. Dhoni played his own game of taking singles and twos and allowed Jadeja to have most of the strike. The left-hander used the opportunity to the hilt to notch up a quick fifty in which he creamed all the Kiwis bowlers to all part of the park.
4. Dhoni coming much down the order
When India were tottering at 5/3, one would have expected to see Dhoni walking in at No 4 or No 5 but he came at 7 when India had lost five wickets. On the hindsight, had Dhoni came much earlier, he could have hold his end intact while others like Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant would have batted around him. He came too late to make a real impact. The hundred alliance between him and Jadeja only helped to delay the inevitable. It also showed that the India's young middle-order will need some more game experience to close out the game.