Can India beat New Zealand in the second Test starting early on Thursday, and draw the two-match series?

They can -- provided they play to their own plan and don't get derailed by the psychological warfare unleashed by the Kiwis.

Having ‘discovered' -- like it was some great secret -- that the Indians struggle on quick tracks with bounce, the New Zealanders have been going all out to psyche out the visitors even before the toss. Hence the statement from fast bowler Shane Bond promising them more of the short-pitched stuff, and another from his captain Stephen Fleming, challenging the Indians to prove their class.

Even the groundsman at Hamilton, venue for the second Test, got into the act, claiming to have received a telephone call from the New Zealand Cricket Board on Sunday asking him to prepare a 'fiery' pitch -- as if the nature of a pitch can be changed drastically in four days!

How I wish some of the members of the Indian media present in New Zealand now had the wit to play the Kiwis at their own game, call up the Hamilton groundsman -- preferably late at night -- and ask in all innocence, okay, you got your call, could you tell us how, at this last minute, you have added pace to the track?

If the Indians do encounter a fast, bouncy track at Hamilton, they can rest assured that it has been so for some time and wasn't tailored in the last four days. The most the groundsman can do now is leave some more grass on. And with the rain pouring down in Hamilton over the last few days, the grass is probably growing a wee bit faster anyway. A few millimetres of grass can help the ball speed up, but that does not mean an inch will make the pitch break speed records; instead, it will merely provide resistance for the ball, and slow it down. Which, presumably, the Hamilton groundsman knows as well as the merest cricket tyke.

If the Indians do not let all this psychological claptrap play on their minds and apply themselves like they did at Headingley, there's no reason why they cannot put the New Zealanders in their place. Even a swashbuckler like Virender Sehwag showed at Leeds that he could play according to the situation. And truth be told, except for Bond, the Kiwi attack is quite bare.

Daryl Tuffey, Jacob Oram and Scott Styris also picked up quick wickets in windy Wellington -- but I'll stick my neck out and say that Oram for one will never, at any point in his career after this game, find himself bowling with five slips, a gully, and two in close-catching positions on the leg side. Basically, those three bowled the way they did because we batted the way we did. 

So, will the Indians beat New Zealand and square the series? Only they, and the next few days, can tell.

In passing, Fleming's statement was interesting for another reason. The Kiwi skipper said bluntly that if you cannot play on all surfaces, you are not the best in the world. 

Never a truer word was spoken. At least now we should stop lionizing former Kiwi paceman Richard Hadlee, who avoided touring the ‘unhelpful' subcontinent as far as he could, except for two short tours in 1976-'77 (India and Pakistan) and 1988-'89 (India). 

Hadlee played 55 of his 86 Tests on the helpful pitches of New Zealand and Australia and captured 278 of his 431 wickets, including 25 of his 36 five-wicket hauls, there.

Why then are we so harsh on Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble?

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