Former England captain calls India favourites to win ODI World Cup 2023 after their batting heroics against NZ in 3rd ODI
Team India scored a mammoth 385/9 in the third and final ODI against New Zealand at Holkar Stadium, Indore. The ‘Men-in-Blue’ rode on the batting heroics of openers Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma who scored their respective hundreds to set the tone for the middle order. Seeing India’s explosive batting, former England captain Michael Vaughan expressed his delight at the aggressive batting of Indian batters.
Vaughan took to Twitter and wrote, “India finally committing to playing One day cricket the aggressive way makes them Red hot favourites to win the men’s World Cup this year .. #INDvNZ.”
India finally committing to playing One day cricket the aggressive way makes them Red hot favourites to win the men’s World Cup this year .. #INDvNZ
— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) January 24, 2023
Vaughan has criticised India several times before for their conservative approach in both T20Is and ODIs and has suggested them to take inspiration from England. India are following a new template in the last seven ODIs that they’ve played as every time they’ve batted first they’ve breached the 350-run mark. They failed to reach the landmark just once in the first ODI against New Zealand as they finished their innings on 349.
Coming back to the third ODI against New Zealand, Indian openers walked out to the middle determined to whitewash the kiwis in the series. They started their innings cautiously in the first two overs but got into the groove in no time after scoring quick boundaries. The opening duo put on a mammoth 212 off 157 balls as Rohit scored 101 off 85 balls while Gill scored for 112 off 78 balls.
Rohit scored his first ODI hundred after three years
It was Rohit’s first ODI hundred after three years as he last reached the three-figure mark against Australia on 19th January 2020. Shubman Gill also achieved the milestone of scoring most runs in a three-match ODI series. He finished the series with 360 runs to his name and levelled Babar Azam’s record who scored the same number of runs against West Indies in 2016.
However, after the good opening stand India lost momentum in the middle overs. India went from 230/1 to 313/6 after 42.2 overs. Hardik Pandya scored a brilliant innings of 54 off 38 balls to take India to 385/9 after 50 overs. In reply, New Zealand were bowled out for 295 runs as India won the match by 90 runs and completed a 3-0 whitewash over the kiwis.
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