In my view then, New Zealand are now favorites to win the series. Then with 3 wins and a single loss to India since the beginning of this millennium, New Zealand will be to India what India is to Australia. Jesse Ryder will be the new VVS.
Zaheer's absence is a blow but we have won without him before so its not as devastating a blow. It is India's batsmen that have failed to put on enough runs on the board. The kind of runs whose magnitude literally causes the opposition to lose wickets simply by looking at the number. That is the Indian way to win matches. The middle order of Sachin, VVS, Raina and Dhoni have collectively not delivered. The kind of runs that Harbhajan can use to buy wickets. He is no longer a bowler to get us to a winning position but he is still good enough to deliver a win once the batsmen get us into a winning position. We saw that at the Eden Gardens, versus South Africa
There isn't much of an history at Nagpur that might serve as an indication. With one win and one loss in that order, we only know India is beatable at Nagpur. The batsmen need to stand up, put their heads down and put in the kind of runs that will be reported around the world as "obscene".
India can't risk a bowler friendly wicket. We need another flat one and ask our batters to forget that Harbhajan at number 8 can bail them out.
6 comments:
oye... it seems pessimism has engulfed you completely... are you talking about same line up that has produced enviable totals or overcome it in no time whatever opposition dissed out...?
i am sure two matches can't change that... in fact bit of juice will help india on two counts... first to tame kiwis and then it will help them preparing well for sa tour in real match conditions...
Somehow they are finding this kiwi attack a tad tough to handle
SP, yes the same line up has performed impressively in the past. But those runs don't count in this series. India has never won on bowling strength alone. There is no denying that we are missing a Kumble and will miss Zaheer in Nagpur; but even those men have won matches for india under the safety of the runs delivered by the middle order
gol...
haven't we seen kumble drawing the games on similar pitches...? even the farewell match of waugh was better pitch (for spinners) than the last one...
what this team has done also is that it does not miss a player that much... vijat stepped in when gg was like a mainstay without us ever feeling the pinch... so did the pujara... and even in SL we leveled with rookie attack...
as i said at sp in comments... any team will miss the caliber of zak or develop dependency on the type of bowler zak is... for example take the dale steyn out of sa attack and you will know what i am talking about...
but this team as done without their star performers in past and i don't see any reason to doubt that... (including even if we lose at nagpur...)
My point is this....we can afford not to miss a specific bowler because we are able to put up huge scores. That has not happened in this series. We haven't put up huge scores and whatever we have put up have been thanks to Harbie. That's why I am saying we need to bat like India to win at Nagpur
I agree with you,it's not just the 2 NewZealand matches,India failed to put up huge scores even in the Australia series,in the Mohali test,our batsmen failed to convert good starts into centuries;and in Bengaluru, we did not cross 600 despite,Sachin scoring 214.Yet,we won those matches against Australia,due to better bowling during 3rd innings.
The 2 wins in the Home series against SriLanka or the recent Kolkata win are the kinds of victories,which we must achieve regularly to look totally dominating.
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