Team India cantered home to a comfortable seven-wicket win in the second T20I match against New Zealand at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur on Friday. It was two-man show for the hosts as Ishan Kishan first and their skipper Suryakumar Yadav ran away with the contest, chasing a massive 209 runs to win.
Ishan, who made a T20I comeback to the Indian side after more than 2 years, notched up the fastest T20I fifty by an Indian against New Zealand in a T20I, breaking the record of his Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate and world No. 1 T20I batter Abhishek Sharma. Ishan’s fifty came up in just 21 balls after Team India had lost two wickets for just 6 runs in the second over of their chase.
Kishan, who was retained for Rs 11.25 crore by Kavya Maran’s SRH ahead of IPL 2026 season, smashed 76 off only 32 balls with 4 sixes and 11 fours. The 27-year-old, who made a comeback into the Indian side for the T20I series followed by the T20 World Cup 2026 thanks to his sensational performances in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy 2026 by leading Jharkhand to the title, kicked off Indian innings into top gear by smashing 24 runs in the third over of their chase off Zak Foulkes.
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Sublime striking!
Ishan Kishan gets to his fifty in some style
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Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav also took a likely to the bowling of Zak Foulkes, smashing him for 25 runs in his second over with 4 successive fours and a six. Suryakumar Yadav stormed to a fifty off 23 balls – his first in over a year and after 24 innings.
Suryakumar Yadav remained unbeaten on 82 off 37 balls with 4 sixes and 9 fours while Shivam Dube was giving him company on 36 off 18 balls with 3 sixes and 1 four to lead India to a win with 28 balls to spare at a run-rate of over 13 runs per over and five them a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
Ishan Kishan broke Abhishek Sharma’s record of fastest fifty against New Zealand, which he had achieved just a couple of days back in the first ODI in Nagpur off 22 balls. It was Kishan’s sixth T20I fifty in 33 matches. “Amazing batting by Ishan and Surya. I thought Ishan played a different knock. Last game it was Abhishek, this game it was Ishan and Surya both,” Dube said after the match.
Meanwhile, Suryakumar Yadav brought up his 22nd T20I fifty in 101 matches and ended a long drought of runs in this format of the game to give him much-needed boot ahead of T20 World Cup 2026 starting next month.
It was India’s joint-highest successful chase in their history of T20I cricket along with 209 they had chased down against Australia back in 2023. While the 67 runs conceded by Foulkes in his 3 overs were the most conceded by a New Zealand bowler in a T20 match surpassing 64 conceded by Ben Wheeler against Australia back in 2018.
Earlier, New Zealand would have hoped that they had posted a competitive total tallying 208 for 6 after being sent into bat. Indian chose to rest Jasprit Bumrah and brought in Harshit Rana and Kuldeep Yadav in place injured Axar Patel.
New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner top-scored with 47 off 29 balls with 1 six and six fours while Rachin Ravindra smashed 4 sixes and 2 fours in his knock of 44 off 26 balls.
For India, Kuldeep picked up 2/35 while Hardik Pandya, Harshit, Varun Chakravarthy and Dube picked up one wicket each.
