Cricket and India

India in New Zealand Test Cricket Series
2nd Test, Played at McLean Park, Napier

Day 5: 30 March 2009

Gautam Gambhir stayed in the crease for more than 10 hours, 643 minutes to be precise, and faced 436 deliveries in the second innings. Gambhir’s patience combined with responsible knocks from Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman ensured India held on to the 1-0 lead in the series.

Indians are not used to batting under pressure and they have failed many times on the final day of the match. The trend has been revised recently in the test match series against Australia at home, when Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman put their heads down to draw the Nagpur test. They went one step further againt the English team when Sachin Tendulkar scored a century in the second innings to chase down a target of 387 runs.

Napier is completely different. The pitch is ideal for batting and as Daniel Vettori said you can probably continue to bat on it for another five days. But, the pressure of 619 runs played on the Indians mind in the first innings. So, to save the match by batting for more than two days required some special skill, physically and mentally. You normally associate this kind of situation with Rahul Dravid or VVS Laxman, who did it before in Kolkata. But, for a change, Gambhir took the initiative and his sedate knock helped India to save the match.

Sachin departed early in the morning adding only 6 more runs. Then, Gambhir and Laxman ensured that no further damage is done. Gambhir left the scene only after India took the lead. Then on, Laxman took the lead and scored another fluent century. Yuvraj Singh joined Laxman and flourished once the pressure slowly faded. The post tea session saw flurry of runs. The two captains agreed to call off the match after India moved on to 476 for 4 from 180 overs.

Scores:
1st Innings
New Zealand: 619 for 9 declared (Jesse Ryder 201, Ross Taylor 151, Brendon McCullum 115, Daniel Vettori 55, Franklin 52, Ishant Sharma 3 for 95, Zaheer Khan 3 for 129)

India: 305 (Rahul Dravid 83, VVS Laxman 76, Sachin Tendulkar 49, CS Martin 3 for 89)

2nd Innings
India (followed on); 476 for 4 (Gambhir 137, Laxman 124 not out, Sachin Tendulkar 64, Rahul Dravid 62, Yuvraj Singh 54 not out, Jeetan Patel 2 for 120)

Match Result: Drawn

Man of the match: Jesse Ryder (I would have given it to Gambhir though)

Records:

• Gambhir’s innings is the 9th longest innings by an Indian in terms of balls faced. He faced 436 deliveries. Interestingly, there are 3 more innings that lasted exactly 436 deliveries; Anshuman Gaekwad’s 201 against Pakistan, Ravi Shastri’s 187 against England and Sachin Tendulkar’s 241 not out against Australia. No surprise, Rahul Dravid tops the Indian list for the longest innings with 495 deliveries against Pakistan in Rawalpindi.
• Gambhir’s innings is the 6th longest innings by an Indian. Gambhir batted for 643 minutes; Gundappa Viswanath has also an innings that lasted almost 643 minutes, in which he scored 222 against England. Once again, Rahul Dravid tops the list with 740 minutes for his 270 against Pakistan.
• Sachin Tendulkar scored his 52nd half-century in test matches
• VVS Laxman scored his 14th century in test matches
• Yuvraj Singh scored his 6th half-century in test matches

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