Preview: 2nd T20: India poised to bag the series

Bengaluru, November 3: Virat Kohli and his band are a bit like sailors. They love to explore unchartered territories and leave their imprint.

They have done that in Sri Lanka recently blanking the hosts in unprecedented fashion. In their five previous T20I meetings, India had failed to beat New Zealand. But they rewrote that piece of unpleasant history in the first T20I in New Delhi.

Never mind his theatrics, Virat Kohli is a role model

Now, India have a chance to bag the T20 series against the Kiwis during the second match at Rajkot on Saturday (November 4).

There is nothing that suggest India cannot achieve this feat. Their top order - Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli - is in good nick. The Trent Boult threat was so evident in the first ODI now seems so far away.

In fact, Boult has been negated quite efficiently after the first ODI in which he bagged four wickets for 35 runs.

Subsequently, the left-arm speedster's ODI spells read 0-54, 0-81 and in the first T20I it stood at 1-49 in four overs. It has thwarted New Zealand's designs to put pressure on Indian top order because others stepped in even when one of Shikhar Dhawan or Rohit Sharma failed.

The bowling department too looks in fine fettle. New ball pair of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah remained effective in the beginning and in the back end phases.

Leggie Yuzvendra Chahal has ensured that the Kiwi batsmen has not really had a runaway time in the middle orders. His parsimonious spell in the third one-dayer at Kanpur had a deciding role in India's narrow win.

No obvious weak points then. The only point of worry would be New Zealand's desire to stay in the series and a resultant fight back. They showed in Kanpur that situations or opponents do not overawe them.

We might be in for a fasten-your-seatbelt kind of match on the morrow and New Zealand could stretch the hosts. But only just that.

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