New Zealand spinners bowled than India's in ODIs.
To make a historic comeback after losing the first game, New Zealand did so many things correctly against India. However, their biggest success was countering spinners – Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, and Washington Sundar – when Indian batters couldn’t do the same with New Zealand tweakers, who outbowled the opponent in their own backyard.
During the New Zealand rubber, Indian spinners took three wickets at an average of 116.66 and an economy rate of 6.60 across three matches. Their economy rate was the second-worst, and the average was the third-worst among all home series where they bowled at least 20 overs.
On the other hand, New Zealand spinners took five wickets at 63.40 runs apiece and an economy rate of 5.37 in the series. This was when they had Jayden Lennox, who made his debut in this series only, and Glenn Phillips, a part-timer with not many variations against several RHBs, which are not his positive matchups.
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Only Michael Bracewell brought experience and quality, but the likes of Lennox and Phillips did exceptionally well to restrict Indian batters on flat surfaces by bowling tight lines. It’s not that the Kiwis had drastically better conditions to bowl in; India, for instance, had a perfect pitch in Indore that turned a bit in the first innings, but Kuldeep and Jadeja conceded 8 and 6.80 runs per over, respectively.
The two biggest factors why New Zealand could outbowl India were their lengths, which they varied by darting those fuller ones in between, and India’s inability to score off good lengths. During the series, New Zealand bowlers were more adept at varying their lengths, with 79.66% good-length deliveries and 16.43% half-volleys, while India bowled 92.56% good-length balls but only 6.50% fuller ones.
Since the Kiwis bowled fuller ones more, they drew Indian batters on the frontfoot on 62.67% of balls, compared to only 48.60% of deliveries by Indian spinners. New Zealand conceded only 4.93 runs per over and grabbed three wickets, while India went for 6.57 runs per over with two wickets when batters came on the front foot.
In short, the lack of fuller ones ensured India were never able to make New Zealand indecisive with their footwork, and the Kiwis kept targeting the off-stump and outside off-stump lines to induce on-the-up shots. That’s also the reason why India’s good-length deliveries went for 6.42 runs per over compared to New Zealand’s 5.11, because they were not as predictable with their lengths.
They also kept around 86.36% balls on this length on the off-stump or outside the off-stump area, compared to only 67.55% by India. It’s a two-way thing: New Zealand batters were adept with the usage of sweeps and coming down the track to force India to bowl defensive lines, while Indian batters hardly did anything different to force the opponent think out of the box as a bowling unit.
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