Tauranga, Nov 13 — India icon Virat Kohli gifted his jersey to New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry, who wreaked havoc to lead his team to a huge 244-run win against India in the fourth ODI of the ongoing series at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui here on Friday.
Kohli met the Player of the Match Henry, who picked his career-best ODI figures of 6-27 and had reduced India to 0/3. He dismissed Rohit Sharma, Kohli and Shreyas Iyer for ducks in the opening over, sending India to a new low as this was the first time that India lost their first three wickets without a score in ODI cricket.
Despite being dismissed by the Kiwi pacer for a four-ball duck, Kohli showed a warm gesture and gifted him his jersey as the two players exchanged smiles and had a brief discussion about the match.
Henry castled an in-form Kohli on the fifth ball of the innings. After going for out-seamers, he brought one back into the right-hander as the ball stayed low and sneaked into the gap between Kohli's bat and pads.
The Kiwi pacer then also got stand-in captain Shreyas Iyer for a golden duck LBW through a review. This pinned any hopes of India chasing a daunting total, and although Ishan Kishan (27), Axar Patel (21) and Naman Dhir (21) fought, the visitors were never in the chase.
Henry came back and picked three more, getting Kishan, Kuldeep Yadav and Gurnoor Brar as he starred with 6-27 and set up a big win. Henry spoke on his performance and the triple wicket maiden after the match. "Yeah, it's quite funny, isn't it? The wind was so strong, and it was keeping things pretty simple, and it's funny when you're actually trying to have a simple game plan. A bit of luck as well. One shot a little bit low there too, so maybe the wind pushed me a bit sideways (smiles)," Henry said at the post-match presentation.
"Well, especially with the way the wind was going, I wasn't too worried about the swing. So from ball one it was just about trying to have the strengths and bring the stumps into play, really. We knew that there was a small window there with the new ball that you could put the batters under pressure. So just trying to be as simple as possible, obviously, and when it moves sharply like that in the first over, when people are facing the first ball, it's pretty tough," he added.