The Truth Behind the Rain: When Chasing 143 Was Never Going to Be Easy

I watched the scoreboard from a Bangalore studio — a target of 143 in 32 overs, five wickets down. In the language of numbers, that is a straightforward win. But I have learned over more than forty years of watching cricket to look beyond the numbers, and when rain interrupts the game twice, the scorecard does not tell you everything that happened on the field. India beat New Zealand by five wickets, but those who add up 185 and 143 and think they have understood the story miss the real turning point — the run-out of Daryl Mitchell, which Shubman Gill later called 'momentum-changing.' This was the first ODI, and the weather had already signalled that this contest would not follow the normal 50-over pattern. The toss and venue are not in the report, but what happened on the field tells us that the Indian pace attack took full advantage of the overcast conditions. New Zealand were bowled out for 185 in 40.2 overs. That was a low score for a team that was at one stage trying to rebuild through Mitchell and Glenn Phillips. The real story of this win is pace, not batting. In front of me were the figures of the three fast bowlers — Arshdeep Singh 4/70, Gurnoor Brar 3/44, and Anshul Kamboj 2/22. Nine wickets went to the three fast bowlers. But there is a finer point hidden here that is lost in ordinary reporting: Arshdeep's 70 runs show that taking wickets and controlling runs are two different skills. Four wickets look great, but if the same bowler concedes runs cheaply, the opposition could have reached well beyond 185. Kohli's 74 and the 113-run second-wicket partnership with Gill — that is the most solid fact of this match. But note: this was not a chase of 185. Rain had revised the target to 143 in 32 overs. DLS is a rules-based adjustment, and reading it as if India chased 185 would be a distortion of the facts. What happened in the 22nd over was the biggest turning point of this match. Daryl Mitchell and Glenn Phillips had a running misunderstanding, and Rohit Sharma, with KL Rahul's help, completed the run-out. Gill later said clearly that this run-out changed the momentum. But I would like to look at it a little more deeply: this was not just a wicket. It was the end of a partnership that could have taken New Zealand past 200. In a rain-affected match, the value of wickets is amplified even more, because the team has fewer overs to recover. Now the point that perhaps no commentator would have made: was this win as impressive as the scorecard suggests? India reached 143 for five in 22.4 overs. If the Kohli-Gill partnership had not happened, the 'late fumbles' — the jolts that came by the time the fifth wicket fell — could have made the match interesting. This win was efficient, but not entirely comfortable. And this is where the question of reliance on senior players arises. I am 61, and I have seen many matches where a big name is present and the story gets written, and when he is not, the same match is not even discussed. In this match, both Kohli and Rohit played important roles. But the real heroes were the bowlers whose names do not often make headlines. Anshul Kamboj was named Player of the Match — with figures of 2/22. What Gill said in his praise is technically very significant: the ability to generate seam movement and extra bounce with the old ball, when the pitch is not offering much help. That is the kind of thing that does not show up in numbers alone. But there is a warning here too. Calling Kamboj a 'breakthrough star' on the basis of one match would be premature. I saw in the 1980s, covering Ranji Trophy, how a player is given a big status after one brilliant spell, and then in the very next match, in different conditions, the same bowler struggles. Kamboj's real test will come at different venues and against different opposition. There is another aspect of this match that often goes unnoticed: DLS. Was the target of 143 in 32 overs fair? This question is important because rain stopped play twice, and without the exact calculation we cannot say whether the target favoured the batting or the bowling side. Those who say India achieved an 'easy win' perhaps forget that 143 in 32 overs means about 4.5 runs per over — and if early wickets had fallen, it would not have been so easy. For New Zealand, Seifert, Phillips and Tickner showed some resistance, but the consistency needed to reach 200 could not be built. This could be a technical weakness in New Zealand's batting, or the result of repeated wicket losses and weather interruptions. The report does not have a clear analysis of this, so I will avoid speculating. Rohit Sharma's fielding needs a different perspective. At 38, the former captain's intervention of this kind shows that his body is still suited to competitive cricket. But at the same time, the question arises whether the team management is conscious of his workload. Brilliant fielding in one match and an injury in the next — I have seen this story many times too. The biggest lesson from this win is that in ODI cricket, the combination of bowling and fielding can still change the course of a match, especially when the weather is helping the bowlers. But at the same time, it is also true that the real test of India's batting depth will come when Kohli or Gill are dismissed early. Looking ahead: can Kamboj maintain this seam movement with the old ball in the next matches too? Can Arshdeep control his economy rate, or will he keep leaking runs while chasing wickets? And the biggest question — if it rains again, will the Indian batting play with the same restraint that Kohli showed in this match? The scoreboard will remember, but I will remember the moment when the rain stopped and a chase of 143 in 32 overs became not a simple target, but a mental examination.