India's out-and-out attacking approach proved faulty in the end against a composed New Zealand team, but the tour is off to a sparkling start
India's out-and-out attacking approach proved faulty in the end against a composed New Zealand team, but the tour is off to a sparkling start
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Brendon McCullum smashes one into the AMI Stadium stands against India during the first T20 match in Christchurch yesterday. PICS/AP, AFP |
They seem to be intent on big hits rather than structuring their innings that someone like Suresh Raina was prepared to do. Therefore 160 on a very small ground was not enough. And it was highlighted even more by the number of sixes which shows that this is a ground where 180 is the par score.
India were short by 15-20 runs in the end. They just could not find the composure that was expected of them. They will I am sure find that as the tour goes on. They will learn that you cannot slog every ball out of the ground.
Having played a lot of cricket on these grounds, I know them very well. They are essentially rugby grounds and that's what you will find at Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Napier. The grounds are small and there is a temptation to go for a six again and again. You saw that in some sense with Yusuf Pathan. But even on such grounds you have got to treat every ball on merit, no matter how small the ground is.
Dangling carrot
Small grounds are sometimes big carrots for some players. It was the opening match, the Indian players are just getting acclimatised and finding their feet in a new country. But they will have to adjust pretty quickly that they will have to learn to play good, smart and sensible cricket on this tour.
The stand-out bowler for New Zealand was their skipper Daniel Vettori. How India tackle Vettori during the course of the tour is probably going to be the deciding factor. Vettori is the best ODI and T20 bowler in the world. He is at the height of his powers right now and we will talk more about him going into the ODI series.
New Zealand deserved to win because they played according to their gameplan. Bowling first, they restricted India thanks to some good fielding and crucial strikes when most needed.
In their chase, New Zealand did well to overcome the early nervousness to build a good structure. Martin Guptill was lucky to survive and Brendon McCullum played sensibly pacing it wonderfully till the end. He had good support from Jacob Oram and others which helped New Zealand win comfortably.
There were a few positives for India from today's game. Firstly, the fact that Zaheer and Ishant looked to be in good rhythm, though the right-arm pacer did overstep a couple of times. Irfan Pathan looked to be very pedestrian and that is the reason India may be better suited looking to play a specialist bowler like Munaf Patel who could do well in New Zealand because of his height and ability to hit the back of a length area.
Rusty India
India will be suffering from the fact that they have played just two Twenty20 internationals in 15 months and no warm-up games during this tour. All those sort of things are the reasons why they came up short yesterday.
But that's the nature of the business. There are not many warming up opportunities these days. You go straight into it.
In a way, New Zealand were more prepared due to their tour to Australia. It was an exciting opening match for the viewers and crowds here in New Zealand. The excitement is doubled by the fact that the local team has won against the odds. That's a good thing given that the rugby season has already started.
So that's probably it, the opening match had it all. Lots of sixes, some lessons to be learnt. But at the end of it all, expect India to bounce back in the series.
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