Rain Hands India a Four-Run DLS Escape as Brar's 4-30 Stuns New Zealand in Wellington

Wellington has a habit of producing cricket that refuses to behave, and Saturday's second one-day international was true to form. Rain before the first ball, rain in the middle of the chase, and in the end a result decided not by bat or ball but by arithmetic — India winning by four runs under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, four runs ahead of the par score, with three wickets still standing and nobody quite sure whether to celebrate or apologise. The match had been reduced to 47 overs before it began, and from the moment Shubman Gill won the toss and chose to bowl, the conditions belonged to the seamers. The pitch had pace, bounce and sideways movement, and India's young attack made full use of it. Auqib Nabi struck early on his way to his first wickets for India, Anshul Kamboj chipped in, and then Gurnoor Brar took over. The 22-year-old quick finished with four for 30 from his ten overs — a career-best, and the second-best ODI figures by an Indian pacer in New Zealand behind Javagal Srinath's four for 23 in Auckland in 2003. New Zealand never recovered from the early damage. Daryl Mitchell fought hard for 55 and put on 59 with captain Mitchell Santner, who made 31, but the rest of the batting order folded around them and the hosts were bowled out for 134 in 41 overs. It was a total that looked well short — and then, in the way these low chases so often do, it started to look like more than enough. India's reply was a slow-motion collapse. Gill fell for a golden duck. Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer steadied things briefly, Iyer top-scoring with 30, but Kyle Jamieson — three for 35 — and Jacob Duffy, also three for 35, kept striking at the other end. By the time the rain arrived in the 26th over, India were 113 for seven, KL Rahul unbeaten on 26, and the DLS par score was 109. Four runs. That was the margin between a win and what Gill later called a stinker. "As long as we get the win... it wasn't easy out there," Gill said afterwards. "Gurnoor, even in the last match as well, has been bowling really well... He's got the pace, he's got the bounce." Brar himself was simpler about it. "I really enjoyed it," he said. "Bowling here in New Zealand, the bounce and the pace really helped me, so I enjoyed it." Player of the match, on a day when the bowlers did almost everything right and the batters nearly undid all of it. Santner, for his part, refused to hide behind the weather. "It was a tricky wicket. There's no hiding it," the New Zealand captain said. "I think they bowled really well, especially at the top." He took pride in his bowlers' fight — "we managed to get the breakthroughs throughout, which is key in ODI cricket" — but admitted his side were probably 30 or 40 short of a defendable total on a surface like that. The defeat also pushed New Zealand to an unwanted calendar-year record for defeats against a single opponent, a footnote that will sting more than the rain. India, meanwhile, lead the five-match series 2-0 and head to Hamilton for the third ODI on November 10 knowing their bowlers have their backs — and knowing their batters owe them one.