 On paper this Indian team sure had its flaws. With the absence of big names of
big names like Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir and Harbhajan
Singh the Indian team sure had chinks in its armor. Even the Kiwis had to miss
the services of seasoned pros like skipper Daniel Vettori and Brendon Mc Cullum.
But at the end of the day the Indian batting might collapsed to the team performance
by the Black Caps.
Kiwi skipper Ross Taylor's strategy of packing the New Zealand team with seamers
paid rich dividends as the Kiwi bowlers bullied their way through an Indian
batting attack in which only three players could reach double figures as the
Kiwi bludgeoned the Indians by 200 runs.
Winning the toss Kiwi skipper Ross Taylor elected to bat first at Dambulla
and suffered a windfall at the top as the first three Kiwi wickets fell for
cheap with just 28 runs on the scoreboard after seven overs. India's opening
bowling pair of Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar did the damage for India as they
sent the New Zealand opening pair of Guptill and Ingram and Williamson back
to the dugout within the first seven overs of day's play. Nehra and Praveen
Kumar displayed some genuine swing at the Dambulla.
But after this setback at the top order, 35 year old warhorse Scott Styris
along with Skipper Ross Taylor steadied the Kiwi ship. Styris and Taylor along
with the big shots made sure that the runs didn't dry down as they kept the
flow of singles going. Dhoni kept attacking Styris with close in fielders at
catching positions. He almost made Styris fall for the bait, as the Kiwi missed
an attempted loft off Pragyan Ojha that made way for an easy stumping chance
which the Indian skipper and glove man missed behind the stumps. This minor
error behind the stumps changed the match as the Styris- Taylor duo went on
to forge a 190 run partnership for the fourth wicket.
As Styris fell for a superb 95 ball 89 in the 39th over the Kiwi lower middle
order lacking in batting firepower got exposed and wickets starting falling
as Nehra and Praveen Kumar clawed their way back in. And the last six
wickets could add only 70 runs to the score as the Kiwis were all dismissed
for a score of 288 runs.
The same venue had worked in India's favor at the Asia Cup Finals but this
time Sehwag and Karthick looked a bit rusty at the top. They survived the initial
overs and looked set to launch a perfect Indian chase but soon things started
turning awry. Sehwag once again fell to his weakness against the short one and
gloved one to the keeper falling for 19 off 23 balls, as at end of seven overs
India were at 39 for 1 compared to New Zealand's 28 for 3.
The Indian middle order seemed to have run into a drought of runs as they found
the Kiwi seamers too tough to handle. Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj, Raina and
Dhoni, all of the famed four fell for scores that didn't go into double digits.
And at the end of the 17th over India were left reeling at 62 for the loss of
six wickets.
At the end of this disaster the Kiwi seamers ebbed the Indian run flow and
Ravindra Jadeja adopting a cautious and conservative approach slowed it down
further. And when the required run rate kept on scaling new heights Jadeja displayed
doggedness and grit at the crease but without scoring. Jadeja may have been
the top scorer amongst the Indian batsmen but it took him painstaking 44 balls
to score his 20 runs. It took New Zealand ten overs in the middle to seal the
match as six Indian wickets fell for just 23 runs and the entire batting line
up fell for 88 runs within 30 overs scoring at a slow pace of 2.98 runs per
over. 'Humiliating' and 'Disappointing' were words that Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni choose to describe his team's 200 run humiliation at the Dambulla.
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