India in total control of Nagpur Test
In the ongoing test series played between New Zealand and India, the hosts find themselves in a dominant position for the first ever time in the series after the end of second days play at Nagpur. After having drawn the first two tests New Zealand had a golden opportunity of drawing the 3 test series after having had a dual advantage of having won the toss and a good number of overs lost due to rain on the first day but one must give credit to India because they neutralized whatever fortune New Zealand were bestowed upon.
In the first two tests India batted well but their bowlers bowlers failed miserably against a New Zealand second string team which does not boast of even a single world class batsmen. One gets the feeling that Indians were not sufficiently motivated with the prospects of playing a weak team and that too at home and that was their undoing in the first two tests. Another thing which went wrong for the hosts was the fact that M S Dhoni was slightly negative in the first test in not forcing a early declaration on the final day of the first day after the heroics of V V S Laxman and Harbhajan Singh and that gave Daniel Vettori and company the much needed confidence in the second test. In the second test India frittered away a golden opportunity when New Zealand had their back to the well but poor bowling and Mccullum double century ensured that New Zealand manged a comfortable draw which otherwise should have been a easy win for the Indians.
M S Dhoni could not have asked for anything better from his team and is in the driving seat with a lead of almost 100 and with 3 full days to go. Team India have the luxury of batting out the entire third day without taking any risks whatsover as they are sure to get atleast about 250 to 275 runs by the end of days play even by adopting a extremely cautious approach which means the lead will be about 350 plus by the end of days play and even if New Zealand manage to make India bat again the target would not be more than 75 to 100 and that should not worry the Indians.
The third days play is also a golden opportunity for Indian batsmen to go for personal glory as there is no pressure whatsoever in going for quick runs as runs at normal pace is good enough to bat New Zealand out of the match and series.
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