Two T20I games at Eden Park and two losses for Aotearoa's Blackcaps. Coming into this cheeky two-game stretch, I was most intrigued as to how the series would look after the two games and kinda thankful that the circus of a T20I game at Eden Park, was given more time to breathe and set up some greater trends. None of which worked in the Blackcaps' favour as they were fairly mediocre in both fixtures against a rampant Indian outfit.

As far as making cricket judgements after a game, doing so after playing at Eden Park feels like the silliest thing to do. Playing two games at Eden Park allow for players to build on the first game, take skills or ideas into the second game and apply plans influence by opposition and the unique dimensions of Eden Park. Given the skill on offer from India via folks like Jasprit Bumrah (insert any of the other slick operators here) and the leadership of Virat Kohli, India slide into Hamilton as simply the better T20I group.

One of the weirdest ideas to come from those two losses for Aotearoa is pondering Colin Munro's standing as the leading Blackcaps run-scorer in this series so far. With 85 runs @ 42.50avg/126.86sr, Munro's stats are juxtaposed against how he's going about scoring his runs as I see Munro trying valiantly and edging deliveries to all corners of Eden Park.

Free-flowing, aggressive, borderline wild Munro this is not. This is a version of Munro that is fighting for every run and at this point, having seen Munro flow through all sorts of different vibes, styles and spotlight, we enter 2020 not knowing what Munro is. Seven batsmen have scored 50+ runs in this series and Munro's strike-rate of 126.86 is the lowest of those seven.

Munro has 85 runs, Martin Guptill has 63 runs.

Munro and Guptill have the exact same boundary-hitting numbers of 8 fours and 3 sixes.

While I do believe Munro should be under pressure, I zone in on Munro's numbers from Eden Park to highlight how strange this wee situation is. Munro clearly doesn't look like a batsman in form, he's barely doing what Munro does best and here he is as the leading Blackcaps run-scorer.

With Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor chiming in around Munro with strike-rates over 140, the batting was generally alright at Eden Park. In both games, the Blackcaps were unable to come close to defending their total and that's also rather weird considering that the Blackcaps bowlers have had to try and defend two very different totals. The lack of wickets was a common factor between the two Blackacps bowling innings and there's a fairly obvious lack of genuine firepower in the bowling department.

At least Ish Sodhi has settled into a groove, not his very best but Sodhi's currently in a better space than he was prior to the Super Smash. With 3w @ 23avg/8.62rpo, Sodhi sits behind Ravi Jadeja is the bowling ranks for this series and then the next best kiwi is Tim Southee with 2w @ 34avg/9.06rpo. Blair Tickner and Mitchell Santner are averaging in the high-60s, while Hamish Bennett is yet to take a wicket in his 7 overs.

The Blackcaps don't have a bowler like Bumrah, but they do have some funky alignment with the Indian bowlers. Jadeja and Santner are similar in how they go about their business, while Shivam Dube and Shardul Thakur sit in a similar bracket to Tickner and Bennett; casual fans won't know who these Indian or kiwi seamers are.

Jadeja, Dube and Thakur have all out-played their kiwi equivalents. I'd expect the likes of Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal or even Mohammed Shami to be better than a kiwi bowler in the same kinda role as them, but for the crafty Jadeja and then Dube and Thakur to be better than the kiwis in Aotearoa is interesting.

These are seeds to take forward into the remainder of the series. What we have seen from two games at Eden Park is that this team does not resemble a World T20 threat, which is not a surprise given that Blackcaps who didn't play. The gap between the two teams is a bit weird though and things will have to change swiftly if this series is to be sussed.

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Peace and love 27.