Leading 1-0, the Indian team is high on confidence and will be keen to wrap up their first series win in New Zealand after 41 years.
With a historic Test series victory in sight, the rampaging Indian cricket team takes on a demoralised New Zealand in the second cricket Test here on Thursday aiming to end a 41-year wait for triumph in the antipodes.
Leading 1-0 in the three-match series, the Indian team, which has been decimating one foreign bastion after another since the conquest of Bulawayo in 2001, is high on confidence and will be keen to wrap up the series. Neither pace nor bounce, neither grass nor seam have held back Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s confidence-personified legion. In recent times, India have trounced the West Indies (2006); beaten Pakistan in their backyard (2004-05), humbled the Australians in their outback (Adelaide 2003-04 and Perth 2007-08), bearded the English lion in its own den (2007) and tamed the South Africans (2007).
Interestingly, if India (118 points) win this Test they could possibly replace South Africa (119) at the number two position in the ICC Test rankings. Australia are comfortably perched at the top with 128 points in their bag. The ultimate test of this on-a-roll Indian team’s character would be a series triumph here. If the current bunch can’t achieve what Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi’s men did in 1967-68, India will certainly find it tough to conquer the Kiwis in their own den when the Sachin Tendulkars, the Rahul Dravids, the VVS Laxmans and the Zaheer Khans are gone.
Tendulkar has been on a high on this tour, scoring big hundreds in both forms of the game (163 retd hurt in the third ODI at Christchurch) and 160 in the first Test at Hamilton.
Encouragingly for India Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Gambhir are on song. Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni provide the thrust to the middle-order. Not to be forgotten is Virender Sehwag. The opener, whose last 11 hundreds have been in the excess of 150, has psyched the
Kiwis so much that they dread to see him at the square.
Having been run out in the first game for 24, Sehwag will be eager to score on this small ground. Like Sehwag, Zaheer has also scared the Kiwis. He has frazzled them with seam, swing and cut, something which the Kiwis have comprehensively failed to do. Then there is Harbhajan Singh. He has already cast a web around the Kiwi batsmen, who hesitated to step out to smother his threat. He may have returned with a six-wicket haul in the second innings at Hamilton, but he would admit that he didn’t bowl as well as he could. If the Kiwis don’t stand up to the challenge, they would be driving their already disillusioned supporters farther away.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}