Abhishek, Samson tear into NZ; break 17-year record in T20 World Cup final

Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson gave India an explosive commencement successful the last of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup against New Zealand astatine the Narendra Modi Stadium connected Sunday.The 2 openers added 98 runs for the archetypal wicket, creating the archetypal 50-plus opening concern successful a men’s T20 World Cup final.

The erstwhile highest opening basal successful a last was 48, scored by Kamran Akmal and Shahzaib Hasan for Pakistan against Sri Lanka astatine Lord's Cricket Ground successful 2009.Abhishek had not scored galore runs earlier successful the tourney but delivered successful the final, portion Samson continued his tally of form. Both openers scored 92 runs successful the powerplay, the highest powerplay people successful immoderate T20 World Cup match. Abhishek brought up his 50 successful the last disconnected conscionable 18 balls and was yet dismissed connected 52.

Highest PP scores successful T20 WCs92/0 - IND vs NZ, Ahmedabad, 2026 Final92/1 - WI vs AFG, Bridgetown, 202491/1 - NED vs IRE, Sylhet, 201489/3 - ENG vs SA, Mumbai WS, 201686/1 - IND vs NAM, Delhi, 2026FOLLOW LIVEEarlier, New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner won the flip and chose to field.Before the match, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma brought the T20 World Cup trophy onto the field, drafting a large effect from the crowd.Dhoni led India to the archetypal T20 World Cup rubric successful 2007, portion Rohit captained the broadside to their 2nd rubric successful the 2024 edition.

New Zealand reached the last aft defeating South Africa successful the semifinal. India secured a seven-run triumph implicit England successful Mumbai to scope the final.In T20 World Cup meetings betwixt the 2 sides, New Zealand person the borderline with wins successful 2007, 2016 and 2021.India are chasing respective milestones successful the final. The broadside is aiming to go the archetypal big federation to triumph the T20 World Cup, the archetypal squad to support the rubric and the archetypal squad to triumph the tourney 3 times.For New Zealand, 1 situation is to incorporate India’s batting bid and grip the bowling of Jasprit Bumrah."Happy to bat archetypal since we person been doing that beauteous well. Always bully to person runs connected the committee successful the semifinal oregon a final. It's past now, caller World Cup, and we are excited for it. It looks afloat already, and it's lone flip time, and hopefully we volition springiness them a bully show. Same squad for us," India skipper Suryakumar Yadav said."We are going to vessel first. Looks beauteous good. We volition spot if it does thing and effort to restrict them to a chasable score. Boys are good. This is wherefore we are playing. It did. Great occasion, the semifinal and the guys volition instrumentality assurance from that. This is the biggest stage, and everyone is ready. No, McConchie, Duffy is playing," Santner said.India are playing their 4th T20 World Cup final, the astir by immoderate team. Out of the 9 erstwhile finals, six were won by the broadside chasing.

Of the remaining three, India won 2 — successful 2007 and 2024 — some successful matches decided successful the last over.TeamsIndia (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah.New Zealand (Playing XI): Tim Seifert (wk), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Mitchell Santner (c), Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Jacob Duffy.