Christchurch, 24 October 2026: Nitish Kumar Reddy said a single conversation with Tilak Varma in the middle turned India’s chase against New Zealand, after the pair added an unbroken 69 for the seventh wicket to win the second T20I by four wickets on Saturday.
“The moment I walked in, the moment when I got the four, we were just talking, ‘Tilak, we have to believe that we are going to get one strong, good over’,” Nitish said. “That’s what the T20 game is all about. One good over and the pressure is back on the bowling side.”
India needed 69 off 31 balls with four wickets left when Nitish walked out. They got home off the penultimate ball, with Tilak unbeaten on 51 off 26 and Nitish on 26 not out off 13. India now lead the five-match series 2-0.
“We took twos of even the good balls”
Nitish said the plan was simple: keep the scoreboard moving off every ball and punish anything loose.
“We managed to take twos of even the good balls. And off the bad balls, we managed to hit for boundaries. I think that’s where the game really changed for us,” he said.
India needed 11 off the last over. With two set batters at the crease, they got there with a ball to spare.
The 69-run stand is India’s highest for the seventh wicket in T20Is. It beat the 63 Dinesh Karthik and Krunal Pandya made against New Zealand in 2019.
Gambhir’s message
Nitish said head coach Gautam Gambhir had not asked the lower order to go after the bowling from the first ball.
“Gautam sir keeps telling us, whatever situation we are in, we have to keep believing,” he said. “He didn’t put any other extra pressure that we have to go in and straightaway go bang bang. We are experienced players and we played to ourselves, and the results came.”
A wicket with the ball as well
Nitish had already played his part earlier in the match. Bowling medium pace, he removed Bevon Jacobs, who had made 58 off 46 balls and shared a 116-run stand with Glenn Phillips.
That all-round role is why the team management want to see more of him before the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in South Africa next year, where he could play alongside seam-bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
“When you are made to bowl in defensive situations, it helps,” Nitish said. “It’s all about experience right now. It’s all about getting more and more experience before the right time comes.”
How New Zealand got to 180
New Zealand were put in and lost early wickets. Arshdeep Singh dismissed Tim Seifert in the second over and Bhuvneshwar Kumar removed Daryl Mitchell in the third, both for single figures. Prince Yadav then bowled Finn Allen for 16, hitting his leg stump, and the hosts were 41 for three after the powerplay.
Phillips, who made 82 not out in the series opener, and Jacobs rebuilt with 116 for the fourth wicket. Phillips hit eight boundaries, four of them sixes, in 70 off 43 balls before he sliced the last ball of the 18th over to Naman Dhir. Jacobs fell soon after to Nitish.
Michael Bracewell faced two balls and hit a four and a six as New Zealand closed on 180 for five.
Santner’s four wickets
India’s reply started steadily. Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma put on 40 for the first wicket before Samson was undone by a Jacob Duffy slower ball. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi made four.
Mitchell Santner then took control. The left-arm spinner removed Abhishek, Axar Patel and captain Shreyas Iyer, and India were 70 for five in the 11th over.
Dhir hit 31 off 17 balls to get the chase going again, but Santner came back to dismiss him too, leaving India six down and still well short.
Tilak, batting at No. 6, had begun carefully and kept the target within reach while wickets fell at the other end. Once Nitish joined him, the pair took the game away from New Zealand in the last five overs.
What comes next
India also won the first T20I in Christchurch by four wickets. The series moves to Wellington for the third match on 27 October, followed by Auckland on 30 October and Hamilton on 1 November.
