India Beat New Zealand by 6 Wickets — Abhishek Sharma's 38-Ball 113 Chases Down 199 in 13.2 Overs and Seals the Series

A target of 199 is supposed to shape a chase. It tells the batting side how fast to go, when to take risks, how many wickets they can afford. In Wellington on Tuesday it shaped nothing. India's openers batted as if the number on the board were an afterthought, and by the end of the sixth over they had 118 for no loss, the highest powerplay score in men's T20I history. The required rate had dropped from 9.95 to 5.78 before New Zealand's field could spread.

Abhishek Sharma made 113 off 38 balls, reaching his fourth T20I hundred off 35. India got there in 13.2 overs and won by six wickets with 40 balls to spare. They now lead the five-match series 3-0, and the series is theirs with two games still to play.

Jacob Duffy bowled the first over. It contained a front-foot no-ball, a bouncer wided for height that ran away to the boundary, and a carved six over point from each opener. It cost 26. Duffy bowled only one more over and finished with 0 for 44 from two. India's fifty came up in 2.2 overs, a joint T20I record where ball-by-ball data exists, and their hundred in 31 balls. Abhishek's own fifty took 15 balls.

What made it work was not only the hitting but the set-up. Hnry Stadium is oval in the old-fashioned sense, long down the ground and short square, and both openers kept making room to carve through the off side or to whip and pull over midwicket when the bowlers followed them. Sooryavanshi, who made 4 at Hagley Oval in the second game, made 45 off 19 balls with four fours and four sixes, and was the junior partner only because the man at the other end was doing something even more unreasonable. When he was caught off Matthew Fisher at 133, India needed 66 more with almost 13 overs left.

There was a small wobble at the end. Shreyas Iyer (5 off 10) and Sanju Samson (18) fell with India one hit away, from 178 for 2 to 195 for 4. It mattered for nothing except, perhaps, as a reminder that the middle order has barely needed to bat in this match.

New Zealand did plenty right. Tim Seifert went in the second over, caught by Axar Patel off Arshdeep, but Finn Allen and Daryl Mitchell added 86 in 43 balls and New Zealand were 88 for 1 after eight overs, with Allen hitting five sixes in his 40 off 25. Mitchell reached fifty off 26 balls and was still there at the end on 89 not out off 52, with five fours and five sixes. Bevon Jacobs, who made 58 in Christchurch, added 39 not out off 23 in an unbroken 75-run stand.

The middle overs were where the total stayed under 200. From 100 for 2 at the halfway mark, New Zealand did not reach 150 until the 16th over. India's seamers, who had been taught at Hagley Oval to bowl short into big square boundaries, adjusted here: full and straight, at the long boundaries, with some reverse swing. Arshdeep finished with 1 for 33 and Axar took a return catch to remove Glenn Phillips.

To be fair to New Zealand's bowlers, there may have been no plan that worked. Mitchell Santner went for only 17 in three overs and took Iyer's wicket; Kyle Jamieson took the big wicket of Abhishek, caught by Phillips, and then bowled Samson. But by then the game was gone. In three matches New Zealand have lost by four wickets, four wickets and six wickets, and the gap has widened each time.

The ground's shape decided the bowling plans more than the pitch did. With long straight boundaries and short square ones, anything short or wide was a scoring chance, which is how New Zealand reached 88 for 1 and how India reached 118 for 0. India's seamers found that full and straight, plus some reverse swing in the second half of the innings, was the only reliable way to slow things down. There was enough in it for a bowler who held his length, as Santner showed, but 397 runs were scored in 33.2 overs, so it was very good for batting.

Nine fours, eleven sixes, 113 runs off 38 balls. He went from fifty off 15 balls to a hundred off 35, his fourth in T20Is, and he was the dominant partner in a 133-run stand with a batter who was himself going at well over two runs a ball. What stood out was that it didn't look like a man chasing a target. Abhishek bats like this in every T20 he plays, and on a night when New Zealand had made 198, that approach made the target look small. In the second T20I he made 27 and fell to Santner. Here he was gone in the tenth over with India already at 178.

Our preview said India's adaptability made them favourites even in a city they barely knew, and that a 3-0 lead would effectively end the series. Both were right. We suggested New Zealand could bring in Kyle Jamieson; he played and was their only bowler to take two wickets. We expected Allen to enjoy Hnry Stadium, and his five sixes back that up, and Santner was indeed New Zealand's most economical bowler.

Where we got it wrong: we described the boundaries as larger than Hagley Oval's, but it was the short square boundaries that mattered. We framed Vaibhav Sooryavanshi as a debut question and referred to his left-arm spin; he had already played in the second T20I, he did not bowl here, and he made 45 off 19 as an opener. We also built part of the argument around Wellington's wind, which the match itself gave us no reason to discuss. Right on the result, wrong on the details of the ground and on Sooryavanshi.

The series is decided, so the last two games are about what each side does with them. India's top two are scoring so quickly that their middle order has hardly been tested in Wellington, and the one wobble came from Iyer and Samson. New Zealand have batters who can make 198 (Mitchell, Allen and Jacobs all scored well here), but they have not yet found a bowling plan that slows India's openers in the powerplay. If they can't, they are looking at a 5-0 series defeat at home.