India vs New Zealand, 3rd T20I: Full List Of Award Winners, Player Of The Match, Stats, Player Of The Series

Ahmedabad, Feb 1: An emphatic performance helped India outplay New Zealand in all three departments of the game as they registered an emphatic 168-run win in the third and final T20I here on Wednesday (February 1).

With this big win in front of a packed Narendra Modi Stadium, Team India also clinched the series 2-1 and continued their unbeaten run at home in a bilateral series. This was India's 25th straight bilateral series win at home.

Having posted a mammoth 234 for the loss of four wickets at the spectacular Narendra Modi Stadium, a spirited Indian bowling line-up skittled the Blackcaps for a paltry 66 in 12.1 overs.

Shubman Gill starred with the bat for India as the young opener smashed an unbeaten 126* off 63 balls to guide the hosts to a big total. It was the maiden T20I century for the 23-year-old talented right-handed batter who continues to raise his stocks across formats.

Rahul Tripathi (44) and captain Hardik Pandya (30) too played a brilliant hand with the bat as the Men in Blue posted the biggest total against the Kiwis. Gill smashed 12 fours and seven maximums in the match.

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Chasing a humongous target, the New Zealand batting order was blown away by Indian pacers in the powerplay and they couldn't recover from the early jolts. Mitchell Santner-led side failed terribly with the bat on a pitch where batting wasn't tough but it seemed as if the pressure of the scoreboard got the better of the visitors.

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Skipper, Hardik Pandya, contributed with the ball as well and finished with his best figures of 4/16 and got support from the other pacers as no visiting batter could live up to the expectation. Daryl Mitchell (35 off 20) was the last wicket to perish and the highest scorer for the Kiwis in the big run chase.

With this win, the Men In Blue continued their dominance at home. Despite losing the first game, they've come back strongly to win back-to-back matches and won the series.

India vs New Zealand Post-Match Presentation from 3rd T20I

Here is the List of all the Award Winners from the match and series and along with the prize money.

ACC Trusted player of the match - Suryakumar Yadav - Rs 1 lakh

Dream11 Game Changer of the match - Rahul Tripathi - Rs 1 lakh

Hyundai Powerplayer of the match - Shubman Gill - Rs 1 lakh

Mastercard Player of the match - Shubman Gill - Rs 1 lakh

Mastercard Player of the series - Hardik Pandya - Rs 5 lakh

IND vs NZ 3rd T20I: Who said what at the post-match presentation?

Player of the match, Shubman Gill: It feels good when you practice and it pays off. I was backing myself to score big. Didn't happen in the Sri Lanka series, but happy to see it work out now. Everybody has a different technique to hit sixes. Hardik bhai told me to play my game, not do anything extra and he kept backing me. When you represent your country, there is no fatigue. It was my dream to play for India, and I am very fortunate to be part of the team in all three formats.

Losing Captain, Mitchell Santner: It was disappointing. It would be nice to take the trophy but credit to India, they played outstanding. Some of their guys are in great nick at the moment. It is tough to win when you lose 5 in the powerplay. It can be challenging when the ball is swinging. If you look at the way India played, they took their time early on and when it got flat, they really had a go at us. (On the World Cup later this year) I guess that time of the year there will be some dew around, most teams might bowl first. We've seen some great wickets, if it is like that in October it will be a great World Cup to be part of and to learn. I think 320 would be the score we'd want to restrict teams to then.

Player of the Series and Winning Captain, Hardik Pandya: I don't mind winning (on winning the player of the series award), but there were so performances here that were exceptional. This Man of the Series and trophy goes out to the whole support staff, I'm happy for all of them. (On trying things out of the box) Not to be honest, I always play the game like this. I try to read what is required, not have preconceived ideas. In my captaincy, I look to keep it simple and back my gut. I have a simple rule - if I go down, I will go down on my terms. We've spoken about taking challenges. When we played the IPL final, we felt the second innings was more spicy but on this surface today I wanted to make it a normal game because it was a decider. Hence, we batted first. Hopefully, we can continue performing like this.

India vs New Zealand 3rd T20I Stats

Biggest margin of win in a T20I between two Full Member teams

168 runs Ind vs NZ Ahmedabad 2023 *
143 runs Ind vs Ire Dublin 2018
143 runs Pak vs WI Karachi 2018
137 runs Eng vs WI Basseterre 2019

# India have lost the first match of a bilateral T20I rubber (min 3 games) on ten occasions. They ended up winning seven of those series while two ended in stalemates (the only defeat coming in New Zealand in 2019).

Lowest T20I totals for New Zealand

60 vs SL Chattogram 2014
60 vs Ban Mirpur 2021
66 vs Ind Ahmedabad 2023 *

Lowest T20I totals against India

66 by NZ Ahmedabad 2023 *
70 by Ire Dublin 2018
80 by Eng Colombo RPS 2012

Indian batter outscoring an opposition in a T20I

Virat Kohli (122*) vs Afghanistan (111/8) Dubai 2022

Shubman Gill (126*) vs New Zealand (66) Ahmedabad 2023 *