Hamilton: After defeating India by four wickets in the first ODI, New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor said that it feels great to win after losing T20I series but there is still a long way to go.
“It is always nice to win after losing clean sweep in T20. Its only one game still a long way to go in this series,” Taylor said at the post-match press conference.
Taylor scored an unbeaten knock of 109 to guided BlackCaps to a four-wicket victory. With this win, New Zealand has taken a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
The 35-year-old also smashed his 21st century in the 50-over format. Taylor reached the three-figure mark after a gap of more than one year as he amassed 137 runs against Sri Lanka in January last year.
Taylor said that the experience of playing for a long time for the nation has helped in the game.
” The older you get the better you deal with different situations and sometimes you got to fail a lot,” he said
New Zealand got off to a steady start as openers Martin Guptill and Henry Nicholls put on 85 runs for the first wicket while Tom Latham played a knock of 109.
Taylor said that the partnership between me and Lathon targeted the short boundary and was able to gain momentum for our side.
“I had a lot of help out there Henry Nicholls and Martin Guptill started but Tom Latham, it is not easy to come out at 5. If anything that made that chase a little bit easy for us was the right-left combination. We knew that there was one short boundary and I think we were able to access and use to our advantage and lot of cameos. It was nice to finish it early and not take it to the last over,” he added.
Earlier, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul played knocks of 103 and 88, respectively, to help India post 347/4 against New Zealand in the first ODI of the three-match series.
Both teams will meet take on each other in second ODI at Auckland on Feb 8.