Welcome to Seddon Park at The Tron; A well-known nickname for Hamilton coined in the late 1990s through a student radio competition that introduced the slogan ‘Hamiltron, City of the Future’. The law of averages finally caught up with the Indian captain, and he finally called the wrong side of the coin at the toss. As has been the case all series the toss-winning captain promptly decided to bowl first and India had to bat first for the first time in the series. Seddon Park is a unique cricket venue nestled in the heart of the Waikato region. The playing field is a perfect circle but smallish compared to venues like The Hagley Oval in Christchurch and The Bay Oval in Tauranga.
Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with the quote “Change is the only constant”. This Indian team management seems like they are fans of Heraclitus if we consider the constant change in the playing XI’s. The forced changes due to injuries are never in question but it’s the unforced ones which need explanations. Two changes were made by India for today’s game. Bhuvneshwar Kumar came back in place of Mayank Yadav who was impressive in picking up three wickets in the last match. Varun Chakravarthy got an opportunity to play his first game of the series in place of Axar Patel who bowled one poor over in Auckland. The Blackcaps replaced paceman Matt Fisher with Blair Tickner playing his first game of the series.
T20 cricket and the noun ‘consistency’ are not friends. The high-risk space that Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson operate in goes hand in hand with danger. Since dropping down the order in the third T20I in Wellington Samson has not looked his free-flowing self. The positional change might seem like a small shift but going to bat straight away and having to wait for your turn to bat is a different proposition altogether and has the tendency to mess with your mind. Hopefully this game of musical chairs being played with the three openers does not end up hurting India in the long run.
A full house at Seddon Park 😍 https://t.co/mDs5A133oh
— BLACKCAPS (@BLACKCAPS) November 1, 2026
It was only going to be a matter of time before Ishan Kishan scored runs in this series. After a two-year hiatus from the team and the loss of his BCCI central contract, Ishan’s career graph has had a 180-degree change. Rather than dwelling on the setbacks he knuckled down in domestic cricket and captained Jharkhand to their maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title.
He finished as the top run-scorer of the tournament and his tally of 517 runs came at a terrific strike rate of 197.32. Strong performances in the Duleep Trophy, Ranji Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy paved his way back into the Indian team and since making a comeback he has been batting like a dream. 1,165 runs in 37 innings at a strike rate of 172.06 have flowed from Ishan’s bat since and those runs have helped India lift a T20 World Cup and win the gold medal at the recent Asian Games in Japan.
Today’s innings was a great example of Ishan’s ability to adapt to the situation, absorb pressure and then counterattack in brutal fashion. He had his fair share of luck, but his 32-ball 65 was decorated with five boundaries and an equal number of sixes. Ishan is a small unit but the sheer force he generates from his bat swing and wrists defies the logic of Newton’s scientific formula of ‘Force = Mass x Acceleration’. Ishan getting runs just before the ODI series is great news for the team and might just swing the pendulum in his favour when the times comes to pick the playing XI for the first ODI in three days’ time.
Useful contributions from Iyer, Naman Dhir and Nitish Reddy helped India scramble their way to 191/8 in their 20 overs but an average PowerPlay and a weak finish to their innings meant that they finished well below par on a ground where defending totals is not easy.
Milney’s 2nd best career T20I figures 😮💨 https://t.co/NhL5IKdhEV
— BLACKCAPS (@BLACKCAPS) November 1, 2026
It is hard to believe that Adam Milne is 34 years old and made his international debut almost a decade and a half ago. When he first burst on to the scene as an 18-year-old tearaway quick the Blackcaps thought that they had found the right replacement for Shane Bond. Those hopes quickly faded away as injuries plagued Milne’s career and limited his international outings to 110 white ball games over 16 years – an average of less than seven international white ball games a year. Over the years he lost pace but sharpened his craft on the flipside, adding new deliveries to his arsenal to remain relevant in the white-ball format.
His refined skills were on full display in Hamilton. His immaculate length dismissed Abhishek, the extra pace messed up Sanju’s timing whereas Reddy and Bhuvneshwar were both foxed by his slower ones. Match figures of 4/19 in four overs are stupendous in this era. The fact that they came in a period when the opposition rattled along at 9.55 makes them even more commendable.
Nobody likes dropping catches in a cricket game. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world because you feel like you have let not only yourself, but the bowler and your team mates down. The sinking feeling in your stomach comes from not knowing how much your mistake will end up costing your team. Sometimes you get lucky and the batter you let off gets dismissed soon after. Sometimes they hang on and score 80 more runs and with every additional run your pain keeps increasing.
The only thing you can do at such times is remember the lyrics of “Quit Playing Games with My Heart” by the Backstreet Boys – “Sometimes I wish I could…turn back time, impossible as it may seem”. I’d love to have a look at Naman’s Spotify playlist as Arshdeep Singh was denied the opportunity to make Tim Seifert his bunny. It has, rather astonishingly, been a series defined by butterfingers, with New Zealand themselves shelling as many as fifteen chances.
🗣️ 𝙎𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙮𝙖𝙨 𝙄𝙮𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖 𝙛𝙖𝙗𝙪𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙟𝙤𝙗
🎥 Head Coach Gautam Gambhir on the Captain taking over the baton and leading the side with clarity 🙌
#TeamIndia | #NZvIND | @GautamGambhir | @ShreyasIyer15 https://t.co/TuSgQnp1ry
— BCCI (@BCCI) November 1, 2026
Sometimes when you are going through a series of low scores you just need a lucky break. The moment he got a life Seifert realized tonight was his night and needed no second invitation to go berserk. Nine boundaries and five colossal sixes later when he got out on 93, he had ground India into total submission. It was Seifert’s clarity of thought as a T20 opener which was most impressive. He mentioned that maximizing the PowerPlay is his first aim. With the depth in batting that the Blackcaps have he said that their plan is to keep attacking no matter how many wickets they lose. With this approach Seifert has won his side a game single-handedly.
As always Phillips was once again there to see the Blackcaps home. In the process of scoring 65 of 38 balls he set a new world record for the most runs scored in a bilateral T20I series of any length. 341 runs at an average of 113 and a strike rate of 185 with a century and three half centuries. It does not get any better. The scary thing for India is that he is a three-format player for New Zealand and likely to trouble them right till the end of this tour. Very rarely does a player from the side that has lost the series get the Player of the Series award but the gap between Phillips and any other player in this series is so significant that an exception had to be made.
The first trophy of this full-fledged tour belongs to India. Although the series was over after the third game New Zealand’s resurgence in the final two games of the series augurs well for the jousts to follow. The ODI series is already making waves in New Zealand. The arrival of two of the greatest batters to have ever graced the game on Kiwi shores for one last dance has livened up the atmosphere. All we need is for the series to get off to a cracking start in Auckland on Wednesday and if that happens the fans will be singing yet another Backstreet Boys hit that goes “Everybody….rock your body”!
