Sanju Samson silences his home crowd

Sanju Samson's homecoming began with a deafening roar and ended with pindrop silence. Between the two notable moments was a short spell of three overs.

Sanju's first T20I at his home ground -- Greenfield Stadium at Karyavattom in Thiruvananthapuram -- ended on 6 off 6 balls after a thick edge flew off his bat and rested in the safe hands of Bevon Jacobs at deep third.

Lockie Ferguson, back in the XI, delivered the first blow for the visitors in the powerplay of the fifth and final T20I.

This match had been all about Sanju, who emerged from this coastal city and turned into a national star. At toss, skipper Suryakumar Yadav knew exactly what a capacity crowd wanted to hear after he won the toss and chose to bat. "Trivandrum, Sanju Samson is playing," he said.

The sea of blue, mostly fans of Sanju, erupted in joy when the confirmation came. They did not care about who else was playing. Suryakumar said Ishan Kishan was back, and so were Axar Patel and Varun Chakravarthy. The visitors, too, had made four changes by bringing back Kyle Jamieson, Finn Allen, Bevon Jacobs and Ferguson.

Sanju had struggled for runs throughout the series, managing just 40 from four innings, but much was expected from this fixture.

He got a boundary, which was from a sharp edge that flew past a vacant slip. Like in the fourth T20I at Visakhapatnam, Sanju did not take first strike, handing that task to Abhishek Sharma. When he came on strike, Sanju remained on the backfoot, like the weight of expectations was tugging on his shoulders. He hurried a single, edged again and then lost his wicket.

As he walked back, slowly, dragging a bat that had been changed a few balls before his dismissal, there was no noise; even the New Zealanders' celebrations seemed muted.