The Indian Cricket Team completed an immaculate 3-0 series over New Zealand when they beat the visitors by a handsome margin of 73 runs at the Eden Gardens on Sunday night. The Indian captain first made a statement scoring 56 off 31 balls in India’s 184/7 and then made some perfect captaincy calls which witnessed New Zealand’s surrender for a paltry 111 runs in 17.2 overs.

It was a second back-to-back bilateral T20I series triumph with a clean sweep for India after beating the Black Caps 5-0 in their own den in 2020.

Here are the other numbers from the match:

Biggest defeat for NZ in T20Is (by runs)

103 vs Pakistan in Christchurch 2010

78 vs South Africa in Auckland 2017

76 vs England in Napier 2019

73 vs India in Kolkata 2021

Most whitewashes in a series of 3+ matches (T20I)

6 India

6 Pakistan

5 Afghanistan

4 England

3 South Africa

India whitewashing an opponent in a T20I series (3+ matches)

3-0 vs Australia 2016 (A)

3-0 vs Sri Lanka 2017 (H)

3-0 vs West Indies 2018 (H)

3-0 vs West Indies 2019 (A)

5-0 vs New Zealand 2020 (A)

3-0 vs New Zealand 2021 (H)

– This is also India’s 8th successive victory in a bilateral T20I against NZ.

What Rohit Sharma said after winning the match

“It’s important to start well. That’s always been my mindset. Once you’ve seen the pitch you know what you’ve got to do. It was nice coming onto the bat with the dew coming early. We had something planned as a batting group. Wouldn’t say it worked out well. Room for improvement in the middle order,” Rohit Sharma said.

“The batting front – KL missed out today but his form is critical. Middle-order didn’t get much opportunity except today. The spinners did the job for us in the entire series. The way Ashwin bowled, Axar. And how Chahal came back. Good to see Venkatesh Iyer bowling those overs with the skills he has. Important for us going forward,” he added.

What coach Rahul Dravid said on the series win

“It was a really good series win. Everyone played really well right through the series. It feels good, nice to start well. We are also quite realistic. We have to keep our feet on the ground and be a bit realistic about this win,” Rahul Dravid said.

“Not easy for NZ to play a World Cup final and then to turn up three days later to play three games in six days, was never going to be easy for them,” Dravid further added.