CricDigs Blogs

India finds itself in a rather unfamiliar territory, given their superb recent performances as Day Two of the second test match with the Kiwis ended. First of all, the Indians pretty much gave up the initiative or it can be said that the Kiwis stole it by scoring in excess of 600 runs. One would have to say that the captaincy by Sehewag particularly in the form of the strange field settings on such a small ground had quite a bit to contribute to India’s submissive position. His field ensured that there wasn’t any dearth of singles for the New Zealand batsmen and at times it appeared as if he was putting in fielders knowing that the bowlers were going to err.

Regarding the bowling, Harbhajan has done a complete U-turn on his earlier performance on this tour. He seemed utterly pedestrian and frustrated. Agreed, the pitch was a bit dead and not the most conducive ones to turn the ball, but he could have at least tried to stem the flow of runs. However, he chose to keep firing the ball short and was cut mercilessly off the backfoot throughout the day. It was obvious that getting out of this situation wasn’t going to be easy. So when the Indians stepped out on the field during the end of the day’s play, I was hoping that they would conserve wickets to ensure that they have the maximum chance of batting for the next two days.

But then Sehewag plays the way he does and he did bat in a blitz, launching himself into the bowlers but this time he did get carried away and ended-up losing his wicket. More than his, it was the Gambhir dismissal that was disappointing. Watching Sehewag having lost his wicket, he could have done better to tighten-up and endure the last few overs. As it now stands, we have lost three wickets for less than 80 runs and gaining a draw from this point onwards appears a like positive thing to think about.