Devon Conway fought alone. Even his brilliant century in the third ODI against India in Indore could not win over New Zealand. Kiwis could not raise the possibility of ‘victory’ in that way. In response to India’s 385 runs by batting earlier, New Zealand’s innings ended with 295 runs.

Conway scored 138 off 100 balls. His innings had 12 fours and 8 sixes. But the rest of the batsmen could do nothing to tell. The second highest score was Henry Nicholls’ 42 off 40 balls. Mitchell Santner only tried to close the gap with 34 off 29 balls in the last over.

New Zealand lost the wicket of Finn Allen on the second ball of the innings to chase India’s huge collection. Then Devon Conway and Henry Nicholls’ 106-run partnership for the second wicket. Conway formed another partnership of 78 runs with Daryl Mitchell for the third wicket. But when Umran Malik picked up his wicket, all hopes of New Zealand’s competition ended. Shardul Thakur and Kuldeep Yadav took three wickets each for India.

What New Zealand caretaker captain Tom Latham thought he had won the toss and sent India into bat today could be a study. Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill in the opening pair made it clear that the decision was not right at all. Rohit-Gil scored 212 runs in the opening pair. Both made hundreds. Rohit scored his first ODI century after three years today. New Zealand then tried to get back into the match with quick wickets of Kohli, Surya Kumar and Ishan Kishan – but Hardik Pandya’s fifty and Shardul Thakur’s short but effective innings prevented that from happening. India scored 385 runs in the last 50 overs. New Zealand needed another ‘Conway’ to chase it down – they couldn’t find that Conway.