Riding on Glenn Phillips' and Mitchell Santner's brilliance, New Zealand came awful close to levelling the series, but they were untidy in the field, letting India back in the contest. Tilak Varma, Naman Dhir and Nitish Kumar Reddy - giving India depth to their batting, for which they sacrificed some bowling strength - made the hosts pay, as India came back from 70 for 5 to chase down 181 with one ball to spare. Tilak stayed unbeaten on 51 off 26, while Dhir and Reddy scored 57 between them at nearly two a ball.

On the same pitch as in the first match, hitting boundaries was not as easy as 48 hours ago. Phillips rose above the conditions and good Indian bowling with 70 off 43 to nearly single-handedly carry their batting effort. Then during the chase, with no dew to hamper them in the field, New Zealand could execute their plans much better with Mitchell Santner taking four wickets. However, their poor fielding reprieved four of India's specialist batters. The last of those reprieves to Dhir, with 97 needed off 48, started India's turnaround, which Varma and Reddy calmly finished off. New Zealand, missing Matt Henry - who bowled only two overs - fell to pieces in the death overs.

Shreyas Iyer won his 16th toss out of 22 and gave India the perceived advantage of chasing, despite the game being played on a used pitch. This is because dew had played a significant part in the last match. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh started with swing bowling but stayed short of a good length. This eventually brought about the dismissal of Tim Seifert off the ninth ball of the innings, giving Arshdeep his 37th wicket this year, tied at second for a calendar-year haul among players from full member countries.

The person he was tied with, Bhuvneshwar, followed Arshdeep's work up with a pinpoint knuckle ball at the end of the third over, which was floated up in the air. To Daryl Mitchell, it would have looked like the first ball in his driving arc. However, Bhuvneshwar's change in pace did him in completely.

When the similarly stifled Finn Allen walked across to the second legal delivery in the country by Prince Yadav, he lost his leg stump as well - to a full inswinger - to reduce New Zealand 41 for 3 in 5.2 overs. Aware that New Zealand were in no position to take risks for the next few overs, India eked out four overs from Dhir, Reddy and Axar Patel for just one boundary, to leave New Zealand 66 for 3 at the halfway mark.

Phillips was 16 off 18 when he decided he had to take Axar on, using his quick and low hands to get under a full ball and hit Axar over long-on in the 12th over. This was the start of a superb acceleration, during which he repeatedly played the difficult shots for boundaries, even as Bevan Jacobs went at around a run a ball at the other end. They added 116 for the fourth wicket, out of which Phillips scored 61.

Arshdeep ended his night's work with his 38th wicket of the year, giving India some breathing room by getting Phillips out with two overs to go, one of which was to be bowled by Reddy. Michael Bracewell still managed to score 10 off two to take New Zealand to a competitive total of 180 for 5, facilitated a dry outfield.

With dew not appearing even during India's chase, at least not enough to hamper New Zealand's bowlers, their lines-and-lengths were hard to hit away on a used pitch for India's batters. Henry started with a maiden to Sanju Samson, with the ball nipping off the surface. The dot balls nearly got Abhishek Sharma out in the second over, but Jacob Duffy had overstepped.

Santner put in place a new plan for Samson, staying at long-off to allow the seam bowlers continue bowling good lengths. But then, he proceeded to drop Samson right on the fence, off the first ball of Lockie Ferguson's spell.

New Zealand still stormed back. Duffy did Samson in with a back-of-the-hand slower ball. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - batting at No. 3 as Ishan Kishan's replacement in this game - was reprieved off Bracewell by Jacobs. But soon, he fell to a hard length from Nathan Smith. Bracewell and Santner then tied India down with Santner getting the wickets of Iyer - done in by the drift - then Abhishek - caught smartly by Smith at deep midwicket - and then, Axar - victim to a tag-team catch by Allen and Mitchell at long-on.

It would have been game, set and match for New Zealand had Jacobs taken a sitter from Dhir at backward point at the start of the 13th over, but he was dropped.

Despite the drop, only two runs came off the first five balls of the 13th over. Santner was 2.5-0-15-3, India needed 95 off 43. Santner could have tried to get out of the over defensively or could have gone for the wicket with non-boundary balls piling up. He went for the wicket instead, and Dhir step-hit him for an enormous six. Dhir then took down Bracewell's last over for a six and a four.

India's target was now down to 74 off the last six overs. Santner rolled the dice again in his last over, going wider this time and drawing a catch towards extra cover. On a used pitch, India now needed 68 off the last five overs, with the last recognised pair of specialist batters at the wicket. It was advantage New Zealand, but they had a problem: Henry was not available to finish his quota.

Smith and Ferguson executed their plans pretty much perfectly in the 16th and 17th overs, conceded just one boundary between them, but India still managed to stay in touch of the required rate, with Reddy and Tilak hustling between the wickets to take 20 runs off these two overs.

With 48 needed off the last three, New Zealand were still favourites as long as they could keep bowling into the middle of the pitch. Duffy, though, started his return with a slower-ball half-volley, right into Reddy's swinging arc. Tilak, 17 off 13 at this point, joined in the hitting with two fours, one of them off a full toss.

Smith bowled the 19th over with 29 needed off the last two, and Tilak enjoyed some luck off the first two balls: an edge on the ramp, then a misfield by Phillips at deep midwicket. Smith pulled it back to make it 17 off seven, but Tilak changed the equation with a back-foot cover-drive for a six over the bigger side.

With an extra fielder inside the circle because of slow over rate, it probably didn't matter who out of Ferguson and Duffy bowled the final over, but Ferguson had just bowled a sensational 17th over. However, Santner went to Duffy, who bowled a good over, but 11 was too little for Tilak's quality and the extra fielder in, as India sealed a four-wicket win and went 2-0 up in the series.