Seifert, Phillips, Milne set up NZ win as India take series 3-2

The tall New Zealand quicks restricted India to 191, and Tim Seifert's return to runs led their chase to give the hosts another consolation win after having fallen behind 3-0 in the five-match series. New Zealand continued to be generous in the field, dropping two catches and taking a wicket off a no-ball, but it was the one dropped chance by India this time that proved to be crucial. Seifert would have been out for 13 off 15 had Naman Dhir, a beneficiary of dropped catches himself, taken the sitter in the fourth over.

What followed was carnage from both ends as Seifert ended with 93 off 50 and Glenn Phillips added another half-century to aggregate the most runs for anyone in a bilateral series, 341. India didn't quite have the bowling resources ideal for the conditions in Hamilton, and the pitch also settled down in the night.

In the first half, New Zealand extracted considerable variation by going into the pitch after Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer had added 93 runs in just 7 overs to take India to 112 for 2 in 10.1 overs. Amid dropped catches and no-balls, though, Nathan Smith and Blair Tickner kept getting wickets before Adam Milne finished with two wickets at the death to go with the scalps of the openers in the powerplay.