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Diwali dhamaka at Rajkot, India loses to Kiwis

New Zealand 349/9 in 50, India all out 306 -- New Zealand win by 43 runs

Talk of culture shock -- till two days earlier, we were watching the languid pace of Test cricket. Suddenly, Diwali is on us -- one of the flattest tracks you ever want to see, laid out at the Municipal Stadium in Rajkot (and to add to the fun, Rajkot is on the small side, with short boundaries, as grounds go) meant that batsmen were going to reign in the first India-New Zealand one dayer.

New Zealand made the expected changes -- Bell and Horne (and even replacement opener Stead) sitting this one out, Spearman and Astle going up to the top of the order to bring in Roger Twose in at number three, Chris Harris coming into the middle order and the Kiwis also trying out Styris who, by repute, is a player in the Gavin Larsen mould, a clever, thinking medium pacer with the ability to use change-ups and change-downs of pace to trouble batsmen.

In the Indian lineup, out went openers Ramesh and Gandhi, in came Robin Singh in the middle order and Nikhil Chopra down the order, taking over the off spin portfolio from Harbajan Singh.

Stephen Fleming struck the first blow for his side when he opted to bat first after calling right on the toss. And Craig Spearman and Nathan Astle, shrugging off their Test blues, turned it on in a superb first wicket partnership.

The pair started off a touch slowly, playing out a maiden from Srinath. But once they got a feel for the pitch and realised that despite the best efforts of the bowlers, the ball would merely come nicely on to the bat with little by way of swing and seam, the openers took charge.

It was a well planned partnership -- Craig Spearman playing aggressor while Astle dropped anchor, opening his shoulders only when he was sure the ball was in the slot to club. Spearman, who has a good eye, was impressive -- very fluent on both sides of the wicket and as he got a feel for the track, increasingly innovative in his strokeplay.

There was nothing much the Indians could do -- 'captaincy' was largely a matter of deciding which bowler would get the stick next. Kumble was brought on as early as the 8th over, and Spearman banished him. Chopra was tried in the 11th, and Astle waltzed down to loft him over long on. Batting, during the first 30 or so overs before the ball got softer and didn't come on quite so much, was largely a case of 'pick your spot and go bang'.

The rate of progression is all you need to tell the story, really: 22/0 in 5; 62/0 in 10; 115/1 in 15 (thanks to Venkatesh Prasad, brought back to the attack, going for 19 in the over with Spearman and Astle driving and pulling him to ribbons -- Prasad adding to his own woes here by pitching a touch too short for comfort); 151/1 in 20; 203/1 in 25 and 216/1 in 30 (7.2 the run rate at that point).

Noticeably, the Kiwis kept the rate high right through the firt 25 overs, before losing their way a touch in the next five overs as the softer ball (the terrific bashing it took till then would only have hastened the process of taking the stuffing out of it) began stopping a touch before coming on. Once they caught on to what was happening and figured out how to combat it -- by waiting on it and thumping it late, looking for gaps and hitting over the top whenever occasion offered -- however, they were off again.

The wicket that went down during this phase was Spearman, after a blazing knock of 68 off just 44 balls, when he attempted to lift the hapless Prasad over long on and holed out to Vijay Bharadwaj. However, that was merely the signal for Roger Twose -- and while on him, I still can't figure why he wasn't brought over with the Tests -- to show himself in fine nick, taking on the onus of run-scoring while Astle persisted with his mix of belligerence and patience.

The real key to the Kiwi innings lay in their frenetic pace of run-scoring, and equally in the fact that they produced successive century partnerships for the first and second wickets (115 and 109), freeing up the rest of the batting lineup to go for broke.

Srinath, brought back in the 32nd over, finally did for Twose when he bowled straight and on a fullish length, Twose tried an almighty slog across the line, aiming for the acreage wide of long on, and played all over the line to lose middle stump. He had, however, done his bit by then, his 56 off 53 deliveries maintaining the momentum established by the opening pair.

Stephen Fleming looked surprisingly out of sorts for a batsman who during the Tests had shown a fine touch with the bat. With the ball coming nicely on, he was still unable to get them off the middle or even push into the gaps and let the well-set Astle do the hard work. Frustration produced a thoughtless, telegraphed charge, Prasad spotted it coming and dropped the ball short, Fleming went ahead with the attempted heave to leg, and Dravid at long on took a good catch on the run.

Those wickets dampened the rate of run-scoring just a fraction, the rate falling under the seven an over mark for the first time as the Kiwis moved to 242/2 in 35, 277/3 in 40 (6.92 the run rate at this point).

Cairns, moved up the batting order -- and quite right too, given that at this point the Kiwis were looking to go for the big blitz, after getting a solid platform under their feet -- looked in lethal touch but fell a victim to Astle's nineties nerves. Srinath bowled the opener 5 dot balls on the trot with Astle on 99, the opener nervously pushed into the covers and took off for a run that wasn't there, Cairns had no option but to respond, and Robin's direct hit took the non-striker out.

By then, the innings was into the slog phase, Cairns falling off the last ball of the 41st. And the events of the remaining 9 overs followed the predictable pattern, given the state of the game, of batsman after batsman coming out, and going for broke from ball one. However, the softer ball was proving increasingly difficult to hit to the ropes, and that meant, one, that the Kiwis couldn't really push the run rate back up over the 7 an over mark (310/5 at the 45 mark, at 6.88) and the wickets kept falling as mistakes proliferated.

Astle, who had anchored admirably at one end -- this kind of track calls for at least one of the top three batsmen to play the big innings, and the opener did just that -- was next to go, trying to lift Venkatesh Prasad over long off, misreading the slower ball and hitting a bit too early to find long off, ending a lovely knock of 120 (136 balls, 16 fours, 3 sixes).

Vijay Bharadwaj, whose bowling alternated between good length and horrid length, went round the wicket, Chris Harris tried to hit one on the up and Sachin lunged to take two-handed at mid off. Adam Parore lofted Bharadwaj for a six, and fell next ball trying to repeat the hit over long off. Kumble, bowling the final over, spotted new boy Scott Styris coming down the track and dropped one short and a bit wide, for Prasad to pull off an easy stumping. Next ball, Vettori came down the track, Kumble again held the ball back a bit, the batsman's slog flew off the toe of the bat to Jadeja at point and when the dust had cleared, the Kiwis had made 349/9 in their allotted 50 overs -- meaning that India would need to beat its own record, and set up a world record if they wanted to win.

Given the nature of the track, it is pointless writing about the performance of the bowlers who, on the day, were reduced to props. 7 bowlers were tried, and none of them seemed even remotely capable of halting the flow of runs. Tendulkar might as well have tried an over or two of Jadeja and Ganguly -- they surely couldn't have gone for more than the likes of Prasad? Times like this, your best option is to try everything, and hope that something will work for you.

In the very first over, New Zealand -- and Adam Parore -- had a chance to take a grip on the game. Parore grassed it. Simple as that.

Sachin Tendulkar, playing the second ball of his innings, uncharacteristically stood in place and just swatted at one outside off, getting a huge nick through to the keeper. Parore -- overeager, perhaps? -- grabbed at it, and saw the ball bounce out of his glove. Nash's expression would have had the Oscar committee interested. To add injury to insult, Nash then appeared to land heavily on one knee trying to stop a Ganguly push on the on side, in his next over, and had to go off the field, adding to New Zealand's problems.

Shayne O'Connor's introduction started the Indians on the slogfest -- 31 runs came off 2 overs as the left arm bowler sent them down with scant regard to line, length and direction. It took Styris, doing a very good imitation of Larsen's nagging bowling, to help the Kiwis pull it back a touch.

Interestingly, in the early phase, it was Ganguly who looked the more assured, scoring freely and seeming in no trouble while Tendulkar alternated between fine strokeplay and some rather patchy pushes on either side of the wicket. Given that he looked not on top of his game, it was perhaps inevitable that he fell, in the 12th over, when he aimed a hit over long on at Styris, not quite getting under the ball, hitting too early and getting more elevation than distance, for Chris Cairns to run back, judge to a nicety and hold. That shot was indicative of the captain's tentativeness -- he was obviously feeling the pressure and looking to shrug it off with a big hit or two.

Ganguly, who was batting beautifully till that point, lost it for no visible reason -- a bad ball from O'Connor (brought back for another try), short and wide outside off, and Ganguly, usually lethal in that area, swatted it straight to Harris at point for the simplest of catches, and India found itself suddenly in a hole just when it looked like they could mount a viable attack on the world record.

What the Kiwis do best is stifle scoring with tight fielding and line and length bowling, the bowlers focussing on slowing the pace down and making the batsmen struggle to get it off the square -- and Jadeja and Dravid encountered this facet of the Kiwi's one day skills when Harris and Styris teamed up. Harris focusses on bowling on the stumps and as slow as he possibly can, while Styris mixed up some good slow outswingers with yorker-length balls on the stumps to put the brakes on the scoring.

Jadeja was a touch edgy at the start. Dravid, meanwhile, started with the sort of confidence he has been showing in the one day game of late, stroking fluently from ball one to ensure that the rate of scoring didn't slip too far. The Kiwi bowlers, however, definitely had the upper hand going in to the halfway mark, as indicated by the progression: 42/0 in 5, 76/0 in 10, 108/2 in 15, 134/2 in 20, 160/2 in 25 -- at which point the Kiwis were well ahead at 203/1, and the real value of those two big partnerships in the Kiwi innings really began to show.

The need to keep picking up the singles forced Dravid to try innovative nudges -- not his forte, really, and the error came when he attempted to nudge Astle down to the vacant third man region, and was beaten by movement in off the seam to beat the bat and take pad in front of off and middle. And with his departure, the top three Indian batsmen were back in the hut, all of them having got starts and failed to go on from there.

Jadeja settled down to play with calm assurance, stroking his way to his 50 in the 30th over, while Robin focussed, during the middle overs, on simply rolling the strike over. 190/3 in the 30th over meant that theoretically (remember the dictum of double your score at the 30 over mark if you have wickets in hand?), India were still in with a fair chance at this point. And if there was one area where the Kiwis erred, it was in their indiscipline with regard to wides, which kept proliferating and giving the batting side free runs to take a bit at least of the pressure off.

When India got to 225/3 in 35 overs (Kiwis 242/2), the game swung back into even balance. True, at that point the ask had got over the 8 an over mark -- but on the plus side, as the runs kept getting chipped away and India held on to its remaining wickets, it was gradually putting itself in position to mount a flat out assault in the final ten overs. And ominously, by that point Jadeja had shaken off his early tentativeness, and was stroking with ominous freedom.

Robin Singh, who had settled won to give Jadeja company and was stroking the singles quite nicely, fell trying to lift Harris over midwicket, but not getting enough distance on the hit and holing out to Styris running in off the wide long on fence. In the same over, Jadeja tried to go inside out over cover, put it up in the air, but was lucky to see it drop between three fielders, Styris had a chance to get there, but just failed to make the ground.

Bharadwaj came down nicely, to Vettori, and lifted straight -- but got too far under the ball and managed to get too much elevation, putting up a catch for the fielder at long off and with those two wickets going in short order, the game had swung right back to New Zealand. Chopra put the lid on it when he tried to go down to Vettori, missed, and got stumped first ball, the 39th over proving to be the one that really nailed India to the mast.

In the 40th over, MSK Prasad aimed a slog across the line at Astle -- and lost his stumps. And suddenly, from a position full of possibilities, India had abdicated. 252/7 at the 40 over (277/3 Kiwis) mark and where India was hurting was the lack of wickets to make the big push. And that situation made you wonder why the three batsmen -- Bharadwaj, Chopra and Prasad -- opted to play hero rather than do the right thing and take the singles, letting Jadeja make the running.

The final nail was driven in the Indian coffin when, in the last ball of the 42nd, Jadeja, rapidly running out of partners and consequently feeling the pressure, tried to go over the top, off Astle, and after a fighting 95 off 97, holed out to Horne substituting at long off. He walked off, and with him, India's last hope.

Srinath and Kumble provided some amusement, but a huge hoik by Srinath off Styris saw the ball go swirling high in the air for Horne to pull off a great catch. Then it was Prasad's turn to prove that you could keep stroking the ball on this track, but off the last ball of the 47th, it all came to an end when Kumble had a hoist, trying to go inside out, and managing only to put it in the air for cover to hold, and give the Kiwis a win by 43 runs.

India will probably console itself with the thought that faced with such a huge ask, they came so close -- a more realistic way of looking at it is that twice in the match, India found itself in a position to win, and made a mess of it; Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid by not showing the patience to hang on and convert their starts into a good one, and the middle order by failing to support Jadeja.

New Zealand deserves a huge round of applause for the way their bowlers pegged away, unfazed by the fact that India got off to a fluent start, and then again in the middle when Jadeja appeared to be batting his team back into the game. Barring O'Connor, the other bowlers were very consistent in their line, they all bowled to a plan, slowed the bowling down, made it hard for the Indians to stroke freely, and stuck to that plan and let pressure do the rest.

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