After a historic victory on their maiden New Zealand tour, Indians had to wait for 40 long years to register a series win on New Zealand soil when they broke the jinx during their last tour to the island nation in 2008-09. But how strong is the Indian challenge in the Test series this time?
India last won an away Test 31-month ago in Jamaica where they beat hosts West Indies in June 2011. Since then they have been crushed 4-0 in England and whitewashed by Australia and embarrassed on Proteas soil.
Their current streak of 12 back-to-back away Tests without a win is the worst since 1993-2001 when the number stood at 22.
With a 0-4 crushing in the ODI series, India are already low on morale. They seriously need to rethink their strategy when they go on to face Kiwis challenge tomorrow. Indian skipper MS Dhoni too has asked his players to dictate terms by capitalising on crucial situations in the two-match Test series.
"If we consider the last series we played, we had one bad session, two-and-a-half-hours of bad cricket. Compared to the cricket we played throughout the series, that was really good," said Dhoni.
"We have not capitalised when we had crucial situations in the game. That is the only area of concern to some extent. The batsmen batted really well, but just those couple of hours where we did not do well. We have seen in this format, it can have a big impact on the game," said Dhoni.
India in New Zealand
| Year | Matches | India | New Zealand |
| 1967-68 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| 1975-76 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| 1980-81 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 1989-90 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 1993-94 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 1998-99 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 2002-03 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2008-09 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
0 comments:
Post a Comment