India lost by 41 runs in the third and deciding ODI against New Zealand. With this defeat, Team India also lost the series 1-2. The Indian top order flopped miserably in the chase of 338 runs. Except Virat Kohli, no one could leave an impression. Nitish Reddy and Harshit Rana also scored half-centuries, but still Team India could not reach the threshold of victory. Former selector Krishnammachari Srikkanth talked about a special moment during the match when the legs of the New Zealand players started trembling, while their captain was also scared.
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Srikanth first praised Virat Kohli fiercely. He called Virat a king and king. After this, he praised Harshit Rana and called him a game changer. Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel, “Virat Kohli is the King of Kings. Salute to him. What a brilliant innings he played! If you look at the scorecard and the way the wickets were falling, the wickets were falling continuously. The score was 1/28, 2/45, 3/68 and 4/71. Nitish Kumar Reddy came and took charge of the innings and later hit sixes as well. But the real game-changer was the way Rana was batting. I was surprised to see him batting at a different level. He was really shaking and hitting sixes without any difficulty.”
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He further said, “Out of the 99 runs scored by Virat Kohli and Harshit Rana together, Rana scored 52 runs. These 52 runs were very important and gave Kohli hope, even though the required run rate was more than 11. Due to Rana’s explosive batting, it came down to 10 and New Zealand got scared. The New Zealand captain was also scared.”
