In the first warm-up match against New Zealand, Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bowl first in the bowler-friendly conditions at Kennington oval London on Saturday. India's top batting order dramatically collapsed as Trent Boult removed the openers early. Virat Kohli and no. 4 KL Rahul departed in powerplay overs leaving the burden on the middle order.
The openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan were sent back at just 2 runs each. Virat Kohli scored 18 runs while KL Rahul got 6 off 10 balls. Ravindra Jadeja was the highest individual scorer with 54 runs after Hardik Pandya's 30 runs.
MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya tried to rebuild the innings but could not stay on the crease for long.
The team could not manage to play 50 overs and got all out in 40th over of the match after putting up the total of 179 runs.
Trent Boult took 4 wickets as he took both the openers Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and 4th no. KL Rahul and Kuldeep Yadav. James Neesham was the other successful bowler from New Zealand who took 3 wickets at the economy of 4.33
While several say that batting first was the mistake after India fell at the lowest total in the first inning, former Indian cricketer Akash Chopra said, "Batting first wasn’t a mistake. It was indeed the right thing to do...if you don’t challenge yourself in warm-up games, when will you? And you could also lose the toss in these conditions.."