India 209 (Axar 46, Kishan 46, Santner 3-47, Duffy 3-60) beat New Zealand 187 (Foxcroft 31, Arshdeep 3-30, Axar 2-28) by 22 runs
Arshdeep Singh and Mohammed Siraj hit a pair of 14s to take India past 200 for the first time in the series, and then led the defence with five wickets between them to give India their first away ODI series win under Gautam Gambhir as coach. Both sides were depleted with players gone for Test preparations, but India had Yash Thakur on debut and Auqib Nabi in his sixth ODI to lend the required support to Arshdeep and Siraj, who was playing his first match of the tour.
Winning their toss for the first time in the series, New Zealand risked batting under lights - India were bowled out for 89 under lights the other day - out of concerns for the dew, but found themselves having to negotiate seam movement for all of India's four quicks. Shreyas Iyer kept attacking, introducing spin only in the 36th over, and India kept New Zealand to 187, only four more than the score at which Arshdeep and Siraj came together.
The last wicket fell to another man who proved useful with both bat and ball. Axar Patel top-scored with 46 off 55, was put under pressure by Mitchell Santner, who hit him for two sixes and a four in his first three overs, but responded with two tailend wickets even as India ran out of the quicks.
Indian would have themselves chased had they won their ninth toss out of 10 on this tour, but they lost a good toss. The seam movement in the first innings wasn't as pronounced as in the second, and the feared dew and rain largely stayed away in the evening. If anything, the problem for India's batters was the hold in the surface, resulting in three catches to close-in fielders in front of the wicket.
Full report to follow...