CricDigs Blogs

The slight gloom was apparent on MSD’s face as he walked to the podium to collect the trophy for winning the series one to nil. I guess one could understand his reaction, considering how close India had come to walking away with a more comprehensive-looking two to nil margin victory. But then again, the way the Indians played or I should say outplayed the opposition in this match, it would be fair to say that they are the winners with no possible argument to it. Agreed, that a one-zero victory after a few yrs in the record books won’t be able to interpret the situation that how well India played and came close to walking away with a much bigger victory margin. However, the main purpose of the Indian team of winning a test series in Kiwiland has been met and that would be good enough to balm-up any brooding souls in the dressing room.

The last morning started with just one question on everybody’s mind — will the weather hold its end of the promise to allow the Indian bowlers a reasonable chance of packing-up the remainder of New Zealand batsmen. I guess, in an island nation you can never trust the rain Gods too much and that is exactly what happened — with just two wickets remaining and Vettori being the only batsman who could have actually batted on for some time, the skies opened-up. It was Tendulkar’s dibbly-dobbly bowling that took surprise wickets under the clouds as the pitch was beginning to moisten-up. Well, what is done should be dusted away and Dhoni’s men have once again delivered. Now, the focus would be shifting to the more maddening format of the game — the T20s with the IPL and the World Championship of this format coming up. It would be nice to see youngsters like Virat Kohli and Dhawal Kulkarni getting a look-in.