CricDigs Blogs

Obiously, we are talking about saving the match for New Zealand.

If it rains and play is disrupted for a few hours then New Zealand has a fair chance of saving the test. The forecast for today was a cloudy weather with some rain. The forecast is almost the same for tomorrow. It is difficult to say whether the New Zealand batsmen are praying for rain, as there is no inside information on this. But it gives a kind of pleasure to imagine that some NZ players are praying fervently for continuous rains tomorrow to avoid another defeat. At least what they couldn’t do with the bat and ball could be made up with kneeling before the good Lord, some of them might be thinking so. Given the fact that most cricketers cross their hearts and look up towards the sky many times during matches, this is highly probable.

But one man would be thinking something entirely different. McCullum must be thinking of playing for the whole day if need be. He is definitely going to bat tomorrow, if there is no rain. He must be preparing himself mentally to come in at any time tomorrow and last till the end of the day’s play. If he shows signs of grit then he has ready company in Vettori. Vettori is a tough customer and would like to stave off another defeat. He would be looking up to McCullum to drop anchor. Both can ward off the Indian bowlers and bring some respectability to the way they lose the series.

The possibilty of a New Zealand victory is very remote unless the batsmen get intoxicated with some brew similar to that prepared by Getafix and start treating the last day as a T20 match. But then again the target is not 200 in twenty overs. It is 450 runs in approximately 90 overs, which is tilting more towards impossibility than possibility. Possible because India scored 375 runs on the first day in 90 overs. But hey, there are still 75 runs more. So possibility is low. Impossible because scoring that many runs in a day by a team hasn’t been done so far. Though the aggregate runs scored by both the sides may have crossed 450 on a single day, a single team has never done this trying to win on the last day. And NZ has lost top four wickets. So we are fixated around a draw brought on by NZ or an Indian victory. Things depend on McCullum and Vettori whether they fight and force a draw or submit themselves to a deserving Indian win.

As Indians we are interested in India winning the series. If it is 1-0, good. If it is 2-0, better.