T3 Days 1&2: India in the Firm Ascendancy

The cold winds in Wellington gave way to the warm hues of Indian triumph. The sniff of victory in the air is uncanny given that only two days have been laid to rest here at the Basin Reserve.

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If New Zealand could take solace from day one of the fact that the Indian line up was put under some pressure before they delivered the goods, they had only misery to fall back at the end of the second day’s play. When play did end on second day, India were well on their way to extending their first innings lead, the loss of Virender Sehwag’s wicket notwithstanding.

New Zealand know what they have to do if they are to prevent themselves a humiliating loss at the Basin Reserve. They need to take nine Indian wickets and take them rather quickly tomorrow if they are to stand a chance to chase a challenging but not entirely monumental total.

But New Zealand also know where they let themselves down. Not a single batsman was able to repeat the feat of the second match in Napier and the resent was a tame surrender as Zaheer Khan ran amok. Five wickets for the Indian spearhead suggested Zaheer lived up to his job. But it showed hid the ineptitude of the New Zealand batsmen to apply themselves. With only one partnership of note, the fifty-one run dalliance between Tim McIntosh and Ross Taylor, who top scored with forty-two, raised New Zealand hopes. The rest was merely a whimper.

On the first day though, New Zealand would have felt pleased with their efforts though 379 for nine did put the visitors in a rather decent position. New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori took a gamble, put India into bat after Mahendra Singh Dhoni was declared fit to play the game. While India did find themselves in troubled intervals especially when they lost Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Yuvraj Singh in a span of seventeen runs, earlier it was the partnership between Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar that showed the first signs of resistance.

If India moved on healthily from five for 182 and six for 204 to 379, it was largely due to the eighty-one run partnership between Harbhajan Singh and Dhoni that perhaps matching the opening stand of seventy-five between Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. Sehwag missed his half century by two runs, but Tendulkar, Dhoni and Harbhajan all went on to notch up half centuries that all added to a rather strong first innings total, one that would in hindsight prove too much for the New Zealand who failed to rise to the occasion.

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New Zealand’s case looks tragic when the scoreboard for the first innings reads only 197 runs with India firmly in the lead with 233 runs and still nine wickets in hands. It hides the fact that India did not get to their first innings total with total alacrity. But it means that their perseverance has worked in their favour and they could close in on an unlikely series victory in New Zealand sooner than people would have imagined, even undoing odds that suggested that the cold winds would prove India’s undoing.

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