Thoroughbreds whipped; Colts canter home

Blame it on the lights. The Indian cricketers appeared to have been blinded by the new floodlights at the Barabati Stadium as they first stumbled their way to a barely respectable 246 and then failed comprehensively in stopping New Zealand from reaching that target with consummate ease.

Clueless and gutless, Rahul Dravid’s boys surrendered the advantage of good starts with both bat and ball and allowed the Kiwis to join them level on points. A route to the final is not ruled out for the hosts but they will have to play several times better than this against, first, Australia next Wednesday and New Zealand again on Saturday week.

Perhaps India lost the match in choosing the line-up. With Sehwag ruled out by injury, Dravid abandoned the 7+4 formula and deployed five bowlers, depriving himself of an extra batsman. At 136-2 in the 32nd over, with Dravid and Kaif looking comfortable, it didn’t seem too bad; all that was needed was a push to the scoring rate.

But the skipper’s dismissal at that point, followed by Yuvraj’s three balls later, turned the tide. The push came, but not enough and only a blistering 33 off 13 balls by Zaheer took India to a respectable 246. Not an ideal total — ‘‘We were probably short by 25 runs’’, Dravid later said — but it could have been worse.

New Zealand started their chase in a rush, Stephen Fleming unleashing a flurry of boundaries. But four quick wickets — three in the space of five runs — put them on the backfoot and India wrested back the initiative.

Only to be shown, emphatically, by McMillan and Scott Styris how such matches are won. Their 128-run partnership for the fifth wicket effectively shattered the hopes of the home team and of the 35,000 crowd.

They were helped by the fact that India struggled with the fifth bowler, a point acknowledged by Dravid after the match. Only Agarkar, Zaheer, Harbhajan and Kartik — the latter the silver lining on a cloudy day — returned presentable figures. Bahutule was woeful, as were the part-timers used.

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As for the Kiwis, Fleming said there were still a few areas for their improvement. ‘‘We have to better our top order batting and not put much pressure on the lower order’’, he said after the match.

SCOREBOARD

India: VVS Laxman c & b Styris 31 (46b, 4×4), S Tendulkar lbw b Mills 14 (14b, 3×4), M Kaif b Styris 64 (108b, 5×4), R Dravid c Styris b Vettori 31 (41b, 2×4), Yuvraj Singh c Mills b Vettori 0 (3b), H Badani c McCullum b Tuffey 41 (45b, 4×4), S Bahutule lbw b Styris 11 (13b, 1×4), A Agarkar c McMillan b Tuffey 7 (8b, 1×4), Harbhajan Singh b Tuffey 5 (7b), Z Khan not out 33 (13b, 3×4, 2×6), M Kartik not out 1 (2b)
Extras: (b-4, lb-2, w-2) 8
Total: (9 wickets, 50 overs) 246
Fall of wickets: 1-27 (Tendulkar, 5.2 ov), 2-77 (Laxman, 18.1 ov), 3-136 (Dravid, 31.3 ov), 4-136 (Yuvraj Singh, 31.6 ov), 5-169 (Kaif, 38.1 ov), 6-193 (Bahutule, 43.3 ov), 7-205 (Badani, 46.1 ov), 8-206 (Agarkar, 46.4 ov), 9-223 (Harbhajan Singh, 48.3 ov).
Bowling: Tuffey 10-1-31-3, Mills 8-0-51-1, Oram 10-0-68-0, Styris 10-0-38-3, Vettori 10-0-39-2, Harris 2-0-13-0.

New Zealand: C Nevin c Yuvraj Singh b Harbhajan Singh 29 (45b, 3×4), S Fleming lbw b Agarkar 24 (14b, 5×4), C Harris lbw b Khan 0 (4b), L Vincent lbw b Khan 1 (10b), S Styris lbw b Kartik 68 (89b, 5×4), C McMillan not out 82 (92b, 6×4, 1×6), J Oram run out 6 (16b, 1×6), B McCullum not out 19 (16b, 4×4)
Extras: (b-1, lb-6, w-12, nb-1) 20
Total: (6 wickets, 47.3 overs) 249
Fall of wickets: 1-39 (Fleming, 5.2 ov), 2-40 (Harris, 6.3 ov), 3-44 (Vincent, 8.6 ov), 4-68 (Nevin, 14.6 ov), 5-195 (Styris, 39.1 ov), 6-214 (Oram, 42.6 ov).
Bowling: Khan 9-1-49-2, Agarkar 8-0-41-1, Harbhajan Singh 10-0-41-1, Kartik 10-1-34-1, Tendulkar 3-0-25-0, Bahutule 3-0-24-0, Badani 3.3-0-21-0, Yuvraj Singh 1-0-7-0

Four-gone conclusion
4 areas where India lost the match

MID-OVERS SLUMP
India missed a dasher today. Sehwag injured, Tendulkar out early and Yuvraj out earlier spelled a bad day for the quick scorers. Kaif’s 64 off 108, though solid, meant India dragged its feet in 20-40 overs. By the time Badani and Zaheer got in on the act, the damage had been done

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NO ANCHOR
Regular fall of wickets from both ends meant there was no one to hold the Indian innings. The usual ODI ploy of ‘you hold, I’ll hit’ didn’t work. No one long innings, like McMillan’s

THE MISSING 5TH BOWLER
India did go into the game with five specialist bowlers but only four delivered. Bahutule was spectacularly unsuccessful, Tendulkar, Badani and Yuvraj failed to stem the tide or take wickets. So should Dravid have stuck to Ganguly’s 7-batsmen formula?

EMPTY BENCH
He couldn’t because, with Sehwag injured, there weren’t enough batsmen. Which prompts the question: why is Ashish Nehra in the 14? Since the team management know about his injury Nehra could have simply travelled with the team while vacating the bench for a batsman.

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