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India do the grind on day three

India 303/2 in 140 overs at stumps on day three, Rahul Dravid batting 82, Sachin Tendulkar batting 54, India leading by 171

At the start of day three, with India trailing by 17 runs, what objectives would the management have set the batsmen?

The obvious one is to bat out the first hour without loss, and thus weather the one period in the day when, in Mohali, conditions aid the natural abilities of the seamers. And having done that, to bat through the day without much loss of wickets, given that the side would be looking to bat till at least an hour after lunch on day four, leaving themselves a little more than four sessions to bowl out the Kiwis in the final essay.

Another one would have been to grind the New Zealand attack down into the ground -- having found themselves shot out for 83 in the previous innings, the Indian batsmen needed to regain the initiative, not just for this Test but with a view to the two Tests still to come.

And somewhere in there, there would have been the third objective, of keeping the board ticking over steadily, accelerating in the final session to end the day comfortably ahead.

A review of the day would indicate that the Indians succeeded in the first two objectives, and a touch less well on item number three.

Interestingly, the Kiwis came out in a defensive frame of mind right from the outset -- Nash and Vettori opening the proceedings, and the seam up of Nathan Astle being preferred ahead of Chris Cairns as first change. Fleming's gameplan was pretty obvious from the field setting -- a packed off side field, and bowlers who focussed entirely on bowling on that side of the wicket, indicated that the Kiwis were looking to just shut the Indians down, make run-scoring as difficult as climbing Everest without oxygen, and try and see if their patience would hold.

To the credit of Ramesh and Gandhi, it did. Neither batsman flirted obviously with danger outside off, both waited for the loose deliveries to come along and even then, opted to push firmly rather than hit hard.

When you watch Ramesh bat, you realie what an irritating batsman he must be for the opposition. Generally, when a batsman is looking a touch unsure outside off, edging the odd ball and such, the bowler can get away with bowling at least one slightly loose delivery. The trouble with Ramesh is, in an over he can push and miss outside off, let a couple go at the last instant, but let one delivery err slightly in length and line and with his immaculate timing, he gets runs. Which means the bowling side is confronted by the sight of a batsman whose mistakes don't get them the wicket, and who continues to score steadily.

Having weathered the early morning jitters, Ramesh was in fact looking increasingly fluent when his one chronic problem -- the occasional onset of laziness, lack of concentration, betrayed him. Vettori tossed one up on off and middle, Ramesh leaned into a gentle push to leg, played it too lazily and ended up topedging the return catch to the bowler. India 137/1 and Ramesh gone for 73/213, having added 15 runs in the morning, out of the 22 that had been added to the total overall.

The 137 run first innings partnership has huge value in context of the game -- the Kiwis, with a lead of 132, needed to take out two, three wickets before India wiped out the deficit, to have a hope of winning this match. The openers denied them that break through, and with that, ensured that a Kiwi win here went out of the realm of possibilities.

Dravid walked in at number three and settled into his trademark Test innings -- patient, watchful, disinclined to give the bowlers even a glimmer of a chance. At the other end, Gandhi stood his ground with admirable patience, shrugging off the occasions when he played and missed, shrugging off, too, a more fatal lapse when, with his score on 59, he pushed at Cairns outside off, an over after the departure of Ramesh, and found Nathan Astle at second slip dive, get a hand to it and fail to hang on. The debutant opener hung in there, pushed the ball around and kept adding runs to the board whenever he could against the one-side-of-the-wicket bowling to a packed field.

At lunch, India had gone on to 166/1 with Dravid batting 18/54 and Gandhi batting 70/223.

51 runs had been added in the morning, off 31 overs. Fair enough for that point in the game, given that India would still have been looking at first saving the game, after being behind by 132 on the first innings.

However, there is a point in a Test when you need to seize the initiative if you want to win, and the period after lunch is that time for India -- the ploy for the batting side would need to now start concentrating on getting the runs quicker, with a view to getting a lead around 160, 170-odd by close of play today without too much further loss. That gives the Indians till say an hour after lunch tomorrow, to pile on a lead sufficient to give the Indian bowlers a chance to bowl the opposition out on a wicket that, with every passing over, is showing signs of taking increasing turn.

By the time the players trooped off for tea, India had taken its score to 221/2 -- which, on the face of it, sounds good. During this period, Dravid had notched up yet another Test 50, and played well enough to raise visions that this could be his first 100 on home soil. Sachin Tendulkar had progressed to 18 and, more to the point, looked hell bent on batting till kingdom come, which could be an even better augury.

Yet, you have to give this session, on points, to the Kiwis. They figured out that the older the ball got, the harder it was going to be to get it away -- and therefore, resisting the temptation to take the second new ball, they just soldiered on with the old ball. In fact, at tea, the ball was 112 overs old -- and dead as a doornail.

In the process, they gave up all chance of getting wickets -- given the line and overall gameplan, the only wicket they would get would come through impatience. Thus, they stayed with the ploy of packing the off field for the seamers, while having Vettori bowl over the wicket and pitch the defensive line outside leg stump, turning in to the right hander, keeping him quiet to a tight leg field.

Where India failed was in letting the Kiwis get away with it, and playing to the opposition's gameplan rather than forcing them to change it. Devang Gandhi, who batted with exemplary patience which compensated for the deficiencies in technique (the theory of 'the longer you stay, the more runs you get, so just stay out there'), finally lost it when he pushed at a ball outside off. The previous ball, an outswinger, had been driven through the covers, Gandhi shaped to play a similar shot to a straighter ball next time, and was trapped plumb in front. Gandhi made 75/242, the wicket falling with India 181/2 -- and what is of interest is to see his next innings, in order to find out whether, with the confidence of a successful debut behind him, the new opener can tighten his technique.

As soon as he came in, Tendulkar countered Vettori's legside line with fine sweeps and drives through midwicket, but suddenly went into a shell for no obvious reason. True, the old, dead ball was hard to get away. True, the Kiwis were bowling with discipline, to their field. But neither the ball, nor the bowling, explained a spell when Tendulkar went runless for 47 balls faced, before he opened out into two flowing drives.

Dravid by tea had slipped fully into the anchor role, and India in the session had added just 53 in 31 overs -- two more that in the morning session, off the same number of overs.

28 overs remain in the final session, and if India want to make a push towards a win, they will need to score at a much quicker rate from here on in.

The Kiwis bowled 116 overs before asking for the ball -- by then soft as mush, and next to impossible for batsmen to hit to the lines -- to be changed.

The wisdom of using the old ball for so long became apparent immediately -- in the first hour after tea, 13 overs were bowled. 12 of them came from the new ball bowlers, Nash and Cairns. And India scored 47 runs in those dozen overs -- almost as much as they had scored in each of the first two sessions of play.

Neither Dravid nor Tendulkar looked in any kind of trouble during the final session -- having said which, it needs adding that neither of them looked intent on taking the game to the opposition. Both of them stroked the ball when it was in the slot, but seemed in no hurry to try and push the by now dispirited attack to the wall.

And that comes as a surprise. I'd have thought, with this batting lineup, the Indians would have been looking at putting a lead of around 325-350 on the board by an hour after lunch on day four, and then turning the screws on the Kiwis on a pitch where, already, there is sign of huge turn out of the rough and, what is worse, the odd ball is keeping startlingly low.

The way the Indians batted in the second and third sessions, it appeared that their gameplan was to focus on keeping wickets in hand with a view to making the big push tomorrow.

There could be one reason, however, why that programme might not work as well as the Indians hope. The Kiwis will know that there is no way India will bat out the whole day tomorrow. Therefore, they don't need to bowl 90 overs on the day. And this means that they can afford to slow things down during what remains of the Indian innings on day four -- take their time between overs, change the field setting frequently, bowl the defensive line, the overall focus being to ensure that India doesn't put up quick runs.

It would be very surprising, thus, if the Kiwis actually bowled 31 overs in the morning session tomorrow, as they did today.

Meanwhile, Dravid progressed serenely towards what should be his first century on home soil. An interesting aberration, that -- Dravid has 5 centuries abroad, but is yet to crack the three figure mark at home. Interestingly, this is also dramatically reflected in his averages -- at home, he has 41.10, abroad, he has 67.77. Which, when you think of it, is the converse of his colleagues, who tend to pile on the runs on home soil and be less successful abroad.

Sachin for his part got to yet another 50 -- his 22nd, to go with 19 Test centuries (which argues a very good conversion rate, incidentally). It was not a 'typical' Sachin innings -- but it was a typical Test knock, full of application, patience, determination and a certain ruthless efficiency in punishing errors of line and length. In passing, Sachin averages 54.73 at home, 54.33 away, which seems to indicate that he is impartial, venue-wise, when it comes to scoring runs. To add to that point, and to maintain the comparison with Dravid, 12 of his 19 Test hundreds have been scored away from home.

To their credit, the Kiwi bowlers bowled with laudable discipline, if a somewhat obvious lack of penetration. They focussed on just slowing the run-scoring down as much as they could -- and it was only the advent of the second new ball that loosened the stranglehold on the Indians.Astle was the standout, bowling a good, tight line, getting the ball to wobble a bit in the air, on the whole doing a Saurav Ganguly act, only more sustained. Aiding him was Vettori who for most of the day was used as defensive spinner, bowling left arm over the wicket to the line outside leg stump with a short fine leg for the sweep, and an otherwise packed leg side field.

After tea, India put on 82 off 28 overs -- about 30 more runs, in three less overs than were bowled in the first two sessions. Dravid was batting 82/240, Sachin on 54/149. And at the end of the day, India had gone ahead by 171 runs -- which, with 8 wickets standing, makes for the heck of a platform. The main point of interest about the first three sessions of play tomorrow is to see how well they use this platform -- I'd think with Sachin at the crease, and Ganguly and Bharadwaj to follow, the plan would be to bat around Dravid, looking to take the lead to as far over the 300 mark as possible before putting the Kiwis back in with at least one session tomorrow, and all of the final day, to play.

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