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India V New Zealand - 2nd Test, Day 1

Matthew Hayden, talking about playing in India said  "There are periods of time when nothing happens and then suddenly a wicket falls, the crowd gets behind the players and then another wicket falls. Before you know it's all happening in front of your eyes"


This seems to be even more true with India being the numero uno in Test cricket now. When the focus shifted to Rajiv Gandhi International stadium, the 101st stadium to host Test cricket, all the concerns were centred on the pitch. There was heavy rain in the southern parts of the country and as the pitch was covered for most of the time, it was expected that there would be some help for the pace bowlers


Zaheer Khan these days does the job of taunting, terrifying and ultimately snaring the batsmen pretty well. He seemed to be on course to do the same to McIntosh all over again as he bowled immaculate line and length to him. McIntosh bagged a pair in the last game at Ahmedabad and looked vulnerable against Zaheer who got him out in both the innings in the previous game

McCullum had no such problems as he began by smashing Sreesanth who erred in line and length to cover boundary. That was the only entertainment that he would provide for the day as he was caught behind off a beauty pitching in line and moving away just a little bit, enough to kiss the outside edge. It seemed to hark back to the days when New Zealand collapsed after McCullum's wicket

Then began the combine of Guptill and McIntosh which was slow to begin with and Guptill, in particular was destiny's favorite child as he was called back after it was found that Sreesanth had overstepped on the ball that got his outside edge. Guptill would get a reprieve as Dhoni dropped a straight-forward chance of Harbhajan

Guptill made these count as he went on the attack against the spinners by using his feet well against them. The lofted chip over long-on off Harbhajan was the stand out

With Guptill looking dangerous and in the mood to attack, Hayden's words started ringing true as he fell to Ojha. He failed to read the delivery that went with the arm and was in line with the stumps

Taylor came and put in the effort to stay put at the crease and played against the flow of his natural game. He would be upset at the loose shot he played because he hung his bat out and also he was basically set up for it. Till that point India had a wicket each in the three sessions

Zaheer Khan got McIntosh with the new ball as he found the inside edge and it pegged back the middle stump. Hopkins ensured that there would be no more alarms as he stayed put with Ryder to continue into the second day

Although it seems that honours are even, they lie with New Zealand as they have a couple more batsmen to come in addition to the pair at the crease
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