New Zealand vs India 2020: Ish Sodhi urges Black Caps to be more aggressive against Indian batsmen
New Zealand were comprehensively beaten by India in the first T20I despite scoring over 200 runs and getting the early wicket of Rohit Sharma.
Leg-spinner Ish Sodhi has opined that the Black Caps needed to be more agressive with the ball and not let the Indian batsman settle.
Sodhi was quoted as saying by Cricket Next,
"We put 200 on the board again. If we can look to be more aggressive with the ball that attitude will be great learning from the first game. If we are going to go for runs or miss out on a couple of opportunities for wickets, you only learn after you try it out."
KL Rahul and Virat Kohli laid the foundation for India's chase after they lost Rohit early. The duo looked in no problems whatsoever until Sodhi broke the partnership by claiming the wicket of Rahul before also dismissing Shivam Dube.
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But a well-paced half-century from Shreyas Iyer ensured that India reached the total in a canter. The short boundaries at Eden Park did not help the Kiwi spinners either.
Sodhi continued,
"They have five or six world-class batsmen in their side and it will always be difficult to contain them at the best of times. Eden Park with its boundary size is a challenge as well."
Sodhi felt that the New Zealand bowlers should have pushed more to pick up wickets as the runs were always going to come through boundaries and sixes at a small ground like Eden Park.
He said,
"Kane (Williamson) was good with the bowlers at end of the game and the thinking as a bowling group was that we have to take wickets. 45 from 4 overs would be decent here but it won't be on many other grounds. So we have to make the aggressive shift for the next game but we did really good with 200 runs on the board. We just need to defend it better."