CricDigs Blogs

Nearly every newspaper in India is reporting on the same issues regarding India’s tour of New Zealand. One, their need to acclimatise to the cold and windy conditions and second, that they are overwhelming favourites to put it past the Kiwis. As far as the one-dayers are concerned, I too agree to a large extent that the Kiwis are a bit short-changed for talent when it comes to playing on high-scoring pitches — and that is exactly what would be offer for the five ODIs. However, it could be different story for the test matches. For starters, the Kiwis bowl very well in home conditions and I am not too sure that the Indians can actually blank them out on the home turf. Agreed, it is more than likely that India will win both the one-day and the test series, but saying that it is going to be easy is bordering on absolute stupidity.

The Indians are known to be slow starters and they don’t tour this part of the world very often. Most of them have little or no county experience, at least in the recent months leading up to this tour. Again, most of their batsmen are very attacking and huge swingers of the bat. This is something that could go against them when it comes to playing the new ball. I am not trying to say that the likes of Tendulkar and Dravid are going to fail against the much lesser experienced and honestly, outclassed Kiwi bowlers, but overwhelming favourites? I really don’t think so. This is going to be real close content. I am guessing something like 3-2 for ODIs and 2-1 in the test matches in favour of the Indian team. Whitewashes? Forget it. As far as the T20 match stands, these one-off entertainment-only sort of matches don’t mean anything really. Can your really say that India would lay claim to be the best T20 team by winning a single match in Sri Lanka and one in New Zealand? At least, make it a three-match series guys.