Johannesburg: India frittered away a flying start and succumbed to Daniel Vettori's spin magic to lose their Super Eight cricket match against New Zealand in the World Twenty20 Championships here today.

India got off to a rolicking start with Gautam Gambhir's impressive 51 and Virender Sehwag's swashbuckling 17-ball 40 but failed to maintain the tempo in the middle overs as Vettori completely changed the complexion of the game with a remarkable figures of 4 for 20.

The left-arm spinner also run out Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the 14th over to effectively turn the game New Zealand's way. Needing a stiff 191 for a win, Sehwag gave India a blazing start, putting on 76 runs in 5.5 overs for the first wicket with Gambhir.

However, once Sehwag was dismissed India was pushed to the corner. New Zealand's excellent out cricket also added to India s degree of difficulty.

Vettori bowled a brilliant spell in the middle overs and India could never recover from the soft dismissals of their key men in Robin Uthappa (0), Yuvraj Singh (5) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (24).

Once they were out of the way, India crawled in the last five overs scoring just 35 runs. In contrast, New Zealand had scored 78 runs in their last five overs and that puts things in the right perspective.