Spineless, gutless, winless

...


Nathan Astle blasts his way to fine inning of 32. (Reuters)

The new year brought no change to the fast plummeting fortunes of the struggling Indian team with its batsmen again floundering on a seamer-friendly wicket to lose the third successive one-dayer to New Zealand here today.

In a re-run of their embarassing batting in the two Tests and the earlier two one-day matches, all of which they lost during this horrid tour, the Indians were shot out for 108, a target the home team easily surpassed to win by five wickets. Four more one-dayers remained to be played but the Indians already seemed to have given up. Sachin Tendulkar was again unable to play due to injury, but the performance of the other Indian batsmen would have dented their morale ahead of next month’s World Cup even though the wickets prepared by the hosts have been far from ideal for batting. The visitors were bundled out within their quota of 50 overs for the third successive time.

SCOREBOARD

INDIA: V Sehwag c McCullum b Mills 7, S Ganguly c McCullum b Tuffey 4, VVS Laxman c McCullum b Hitchcock 10, R Dravid c Vettori b Hitchcock 20, M Kaif c McCullum b Oram 17, Yuvraj Singh run out 12, S Bangar c McCullum b Tuffey 1, A Agarkar c Hitchcock b Astle 6, Zaheer Khan not out 8, Harbhajan Singh c Vincent b Hitchcock 0, J Srinath c Fleming b Oram 1.
Extras: (lb-8, w-9, nb-5) 22. Total: (all out, 41.1 overs) 108
Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-15, 3-38, 4-67, 5-82, 6-83, 7-90, 8-100, 9-102.
Bowling: Tuffey 10-2-11-2, Mills 10-2-26-1, Oram 8.1-1-22-2, Hitchcock 8-0-30-3, Astle 5-1-11-1.

Story continues below this ad

NEW ZEALAND: S Fleming c Kaif b Zaheer 4, N Astle c Ganguly b Srinath 32, M Sinclair c and b Agarkar 0, C McMillan c Kaif b Agarkar 22, L Vincent lbw b Agarkar 15, B McCullam not out 10, J Oram not out 10.
Extras: (lb-6, w-9, nb-1) 16. Total: (for 5 wkts, 26.5 overs) 109
Fall of wickets: 1-37, 2-39, 3-50, 4-83, 5-92.
Bowling: Srinath 8-0-44-1, Zaheer Khan 9-0-26-1, Agarkar 8.5-1-26-3, Bangar 1-0-7-0.

Skipper Saurav Ganguly made a seemingly bold decision by opting to bat first on a wicket that looked quite conducive to seam bowling. But his plans came unstuck when one after the other of his batsmen returned to the pavilion without making much impression. The plight of the Indians could be gauged from the factthat the 22 extras made the highest contribution to the scoresheet.

Rahul Dravid came near to that, scoring 20, while Mohammad Kaif managed 17 as only four batsmen could get into the double figures. The captain himself once again struggled to put bat to ball, except for the edges, and was out for four, becoming one of the five batsmen to be caught by wicketkeeper Brendan Mccullam.