Rajkot (Gujarat) [India], January 13 : New Zealand batter Nick Kelly hopes that Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma don't score runs during the second ODI at the Niranjan Shah Stadium on Wednesday.
India defeated New Zealand by four wickets in the first ODI in Vadodara on Sunday and took a 1-0 lead in the ongoing three-match series. The Men in Blue lost momentum after Kohli was dismissed for 93, but KL Rahul's calm and composed 29 not out off 21 balls sealed the victory for India in the second last over.
India pulled off a thrilling chase, reaching 301 in the second last over of the innings, with Rahul and Washington Sundar putting up a decent partnership to seal the win by four wickets.
"Any time you get to come up against some of the world's best, it's obviously very exciting from a cricket fan's point of view. But I think the boys who are out there will be very excited. And hopefully they don't score too many runs," Kelly told reporters ahead of the second ODI.
The 32-year-old is hoping to have a cracking game after the first ODI went close, which India won by our wickets. "Yeah, obviously very exciting. The game a couple of days ago was very, very close. So it was good to get here today. And, you know, beautiful practice wicket. So hopefully another cracking game tomorrow."
"Obviously, it was a cracking game. You know, at the end there it got very, very tight. Hopefully, you know, we've had a lot of chats over the last 24 to 48 hours. So hopefully tomorrow we can go out there and get the win and make it 1-1," Kelly added.
Squads:
India Squad: Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill(c), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul(w), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, Ayush Badoni, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel.
New Zealand Squad: Devon Conway, Henry Nicholls, Will Young, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Hay(w), Michael Bracewell(c), Zakary Foulkes, Kristian Clarke, Kyle Jamieson, Adithya Ashok, Jayden Lennox, Nick Kelly, Josh Clarkson, Michael Rae.