India beat New Zealand by four wickets with a ball to spare in the second T20I at Hagley Oval in Christchurch on October 24, recovering from a middle-overs collapse to move 2-0 up in the five-match series after winning the series opener at the same venue two days earlier.
New Zealand posted 180 for 5, built around Glenn Phillips's 70 off 43 balls and a supporting 58 off 46 from Bevon Jacobs. Arshdeep Singh finished with 2 for 33, removing Phillips among his two wickets as India's attack otherwise struggled to find consistent breakthroughs against a New Zealand innings that kept the scoreboard moving throughout.
Chasing 181, India slid to 112 for 6 inside the 15th over as Mitchell Santner ran through the middle order to finish with 4 for 21. Tilak Varma, who also took two catches earlier in the innings, then added an unbroken 69 off just 30 balls with Nitish Kumar Reddy to drag India over the line, finishing unbeaten on 51 off 26 balls and taking the Player of the Match award. Reddy was unbeaten on 26 off 13 as the pair closed out the win with a ball of the innings still unused.
Having set up a position of real control through the middle overs, New Zealand's fielding was repeatedly cited in match reports as the difference, with reprieves along the way helping India's lower order survive the pressure Santner's spell had created. For a side already missing Rachin Ravindra for the entire T20I leg, letting a winning position slip twice at the same ground is a costly habit to carry into the remainder of the tour.
A 2-0 lead with three matches to play puts India in a commanding position in a series New Zealand had hoped would offer a response to their T20 World Cup near-misses in home conditions. For India, successive chases built on middle-order rescue acts rather than top-order control are a function worth monitoring as the series moves to Wellington for the third match later this week.
Varma's finishing in back-to-back matches at Hagley Oval makes him a standout middle-order pick for as long as the series continues, with Reddy's finishing cameo adding further value lower down the order. Santner's economy and wicket-taking through the middle overs make him the clearest value pick for New Zealand fantasy teams despite finishing on the losing side.
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Scores and the result in this article are verified against same-day match reports and freshly re-checked sources as of October 24, 2026; outlets differ by a handful of runs on India's exact chase total, and only the 181 for 6 figure carried by the majority of reports is treated as settled.
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