cricket

Updated: Feb 09, 2019 16:49 IST

Khaleel Ahmed is not quite accustomed to facing the press and it was quite apparent when the young pacer attended the post-match press conference after the second T20I match between India and New Zealand in Auckland on Friday. He had to face a number of questions from the journalists but one left him stumped.

When asked whether the team was missing Kohli who is presently on a vacation, Khaleel looked quite confused at first and then, he burst into laughter before recovering to say “Don’t ask... Next question please.”

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Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant batted beautifully after good bowling shows from Krunal Pandya and Khaleel Ahmed as India defeated New Zealand by seven wickets to level the series 1-1. It was a good show by the Indian bowlers and Khaleel Ahmed took two late wickets to ensure New Zealand fell short of an adequate total.

“Because the ground was small, we deliberately bowled back of length to curtail boundaries. We had to shorten the length as conventional swing was not on offer. We showed a lot of improvement today and hope to improve further in the next game,” Khaleel said when asked about his gameplan against the New Zealand batsmen.

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The youngster also spoke about the inputs given by skipper Rohit Sharma as the Eden Park ground has different dimensions and the angles are not like other grounds. “Rohit bhai told us about which are the areas batsmen will target and how to cut the angles,” he added.