Yes I am referring to New Zealand's Twenty20 International clean sweep over the masters and champion of Twenty20s, India. Let's got get too carried away with this minor series win. This also happened last year but it was against New Zealand. England destroyed New Zealand in the Twenty20 series but look who won the ODI series, New Zealand by a big margin (3-1). It really should of been 4-1 had New Zealand played decent cricket in the last 10 or so overs but that's getting away from the point. The point is New Zealand have to justify these minor victors with big victories in the ODI arena or even the test arena in the near future.
A big wrap has to go to Brendon McCullum. He scored two well measured innings that turned out to be matchwinning. Hopefully, McCullum can adapt this sort of batting to his ODI career and we should see his average sneak up to the 40s. Finally McCullum has finally taken the initiative and responsibility for his team, playing the anchor role around some really big hitters in this New Zealand line-up, i.e. Jesse Ryder, Martin Guptil, Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram. McCullum has now scored 4 consecutive fifties in 4 Twenty20 games - simply outstanding! In ODIs, it is equivalent to scoriing four consecutive centuries in 4 games. Boy would Brendon McCullum love to get that feat. He might even if he continues to play like he's done in the Twenty20s.
Twenty20 Series Report Card
(only the players who played both Twenty20 games)
Stand-outs:
New Zealand: Brendon McCullum (obviously), Daniel Vettori, Iain O'Brien
India: Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan
Decent:
New Zealand: Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, Jacob Oram
India: Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh
Dissapointments:
New Zealand: Tim Southee
India: MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan
The Twenty20 series has indicated that this series should be a fascinating contest to watch.
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