Of all the Test grounds in all the towns in all the world, the southern-most Test venue, in a place cricketers consider the coldest, Dunedin’s Carisbrook, was to warm Indian cricket’s hearts because it had taken their team 36 years and 43 attempts to bring up its first overseas Test victory.
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There was a time until recently when India had whitewashed series’ longer than two Tests only twice in the history of their Test cricket. Five months previously, at Lord’s, Mankad had scored 72 and 184 and taken five wickets, only for India to lose by eight wickets.
In Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul and skipper Virat Kohli, India have a number of match-winning players especially considering that they are playing at home while the spinners led by R Ashwin proved they are nearly unplayable when there is turn and drift on offer.
“Yes, the home team certainly has the advantage of knowing and playing in these conditions, growing up in these conditions”.
No Ishant Sharma for India, no Tim Southee for New Zealand – so that has evened itself out, going into the first Test in Kanpur on Thursday. “The ICC wish its team all the best for this 500th Test and in the years to come”, he added. “We all are ready for that”, he said.
Ishant Sharma of India. “I know there will be a lot of talk on the pitch, but we as a team do not talk on the pitch, but on cricket”, said Kumble. “This is the start of the season, and we don’t usually play here in September”.
Anil Kumble, the India coach, said the team management had not asked for a replacement for Ishant. “If we can do that the game goes a bit deeper and you give yourself a good chance”. “We will play on whatever surface is there”, the Indian head coach said yesterday. The team showed it was capable of winning a series in England, winning a historic rubber in Pakistan, sharing contests in Australia and South Africa and winning a series in New Zealand for the first time in 41 years.
Indian coach Anil Kumble believes the different variations of spin would work in New Zealand’s favour.
“The weather is not in our control but we have generally seen slow and low wickets here, like it was in the ODI against South Africa previous year”.
A GREAT MILESTONE The Kanpur Test will be India’s 500th Test in the format. New Zealand, under Williamson, might well be their biggest obstacle if they can execute their spin plans right. And India are playing good cricket at the moment, but we have got a group of cricketers who will be highly competitive. They are not just good at home, they tour really well.
“Yes we are playing ODIs as well but focussing on Tests first”. We have also discussed the same.
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India v New Zealand Kanpur, starts 4pm tomorrow India: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddiman Saha, Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Amit Mishra, Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, New Zealand: (from) Kane Williamson (c), Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, Henry Nicholls, BJ Watling, Luke Ronchi, Mitchell Santner, Mark Craig, Ish Sodhi, Neil Wagner, Doug Bracewell, Trent Boult.
