The New Zealand Black Caps' One-Day International record at McLean Park (Napier) is very impressive but the Indian team upset that record with a narrow two-wicket win in the second one-day international. It has been a happy hunting ground, with the Black Caps winning 10 ODIs out of 13 matches, with one tied and two losses. McLean Park had not been a happy ground for Indians who suffered a seven wicket defeat by Central Districts in the build up match prior to the Test series starting with two losses in one-day matches to New Zealand during the nineties, a win will please them.The match was not a good one from a cricketing point of view, but the spectators enjoyed the tight contest with the result going either way. There was some poor cricket from both teams. When New Zealand were 157/3 off 32 overs, they should have reached 250 or more. Five run outs and two stumpings prevented New Zealand from reaching a respectable score, yet the Indian fielding was only average. Poor calling, lack of communication andloss of confidence ended in shambolic dismissals.Without the injured Stephen Fleming and Nathan Astle, two of New Zealand's successful batsmen at McLean Park in recent years, the Black Caps' batting perished through indecision. Fleming scored 111 not out to lead New Zealand to a seven-wicket win over Australia last season. Astle's unbeaten 104 did the same job when New Zealand demolished Zimbabwe by nine wickets in 1997/8, but in this match only Matthew Horne (Man of the Match) with 63 was able to pass 50 in the whole match.Dion Nash, filling in as New Zealand captain, impressed with his `do or die' attitude. The Black Caps never had enough runs but they scrambled in the field for everything to pressurise India into making mistakes including three more run outs in the match.The Indian bowling had more purposes about it than in previous matches. Prasad bowled magnificently in his opening spell with Tendulkar and Chopra doing a fine job to restrict the Black Caps. India should have paced the target andwon comfortably by six wickets, but some inspired bowling by Chris Harris, Dion Nash and Daniel Vettori as well as an overall outstanding effort in the field by the Black Cap fielders, kept New Zealand alive upto the second last ball of the match.This match was more keenly contested than the previous match at Taupo which New Zealand won by five wickets. Taupo was a hollow victory for New Zealand when the Duckworth-Lewis calculation system for overs lost is difficult to understand and accept as a fair way of determining targets for the team batting second. It appears the more overs lost, the harder the target is, which is unrealistic. For example, New Zealand were 168/3 after 31 overs with India being 130/2 at the same stage. On that basis, New Zealand appeared to be the winners with a faster run rate when play was halted after the lights went out.If there was no further play and 19 overs were lost, the Duckworth-Lewis calculation had New Zealand needing their score to be at 202 for a win after 31 overswith the run rate needing to be at 6.4 runs per over, a tall order. Eventually 11 overs were lost allowing New Zealand to reach a new target of 200 from 39 overs, an easier task. Confusing for many!Their series is now squared at one all with India showing some courage that could spark and save the rest of the tour for them. We have not seen the best of them on this tour. This win has set the series alive and we can expect good cricket over the next three matches.
