Rajkot (Gujarat) [India], January 15 : After New Zealand secured a seven-wicket win in the second ODI of the three-match series, India's assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate hailed wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul, who notched up his eighth ODI century.
During the post-match press-conference, ten Doeschate hailed Rahul's ton as "a quality hundred." The assistant coach also spoke on the strategies for playing all-rounders at the sixth, seventh, and eighth positions, with Rahul taking the number five slot in the batting order.
"I mean, KL Rahul is certainly good enough to be a number five, that's a quality hundred. I guess one of our strategies in the last 18 months has been to prolong that batting order, and we do like to use the all-rounder either high up the order or at number five, like we have done with Washington Sundar in the past. With KL Rahul finding the form and scoring runs means he can be a regular number five, and you play all-rounders at sixth, seventh or eighth, with hopefully Harshit Rana being that number eight, will give us a lot more depth," ten Doeschate said.
Coming to the match, India posted a competitive 284/7 on the board in 50 overs after being asked to bat first. Captain Shubman Gill scored 56 runs off 53 deliveries, including nine fours and one six. Rohit Sharma made 24 off 38 balls, with the help of four boundaries.
Virat Kohli scored 23 runs off 29 deliveries, including two fours. Wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul slammed his eighth ODI century. Rahul remained unbeaten at 112 runs off 92 balls, along with 11 fours and one six.
With the ball, Kyle Jamieson (1/70), Zakary Foulkes (1/67), Kristian Clarke (3/56), Jayden Lennox (1/42) and captain Michael Bracewell (1/34) were among the wicket takers for New Zealand.
While chasing a target of 285 runs, Will Young played a fantastic knock of 87 runs off 98 deliveries, including seven fours. Young stitched a brilliant 162-run partnership with Daryl Mitchell, who played a match-winning, unbeaten knock of 131 runs off 117 balls, with the help of 11 fours and two sixes as New Zealand chased down their highest successful ODI run chase (285) in India.
The visitors won by seven wickets, levelling the three-match ODI series at 1-1. For India, Harshit Rana (1/52), Prasidh Krishna (1/49) and Kuldeep Yadav (1/82) were among the wicket-takers.