A series of missed opportunites for India

There are meritorious victories, hollow victories and hard fought victories. India's triumph in the just concluded three Test series against New Zealand was certainly well merited but it was a hard fought win over worthy opponents. I had said at the beginning of the series that the New Zealand side, which was being written off in some quarters as brittle and no more than average, was a team that had to be treated with some respect. After all, they had won a series in England and had also entered the semifinals of the World Cup. They certainly were not a dynamic side full of world beaters. But they did look a competent team capable of almost holding its own in a stolid, unspectacular way. Of course India would start favourities, particularly with their home record of not having lost a series since 1986-87. But there was no question of them being overwhelming favourites.

The ultimate result - a win and two draws which sufficed for India to take the series - would no doubt be disappointing to Indian cricket fans who reckoned that their team had chances to wrap up both the drawn Tests. They did have the opportunity, but if they failed in their objective, it was not the fault of the visitors. Being underdogs, they had to be on the defensive and it is creditable that they fought hard to draw both the matches. Only at Kanpur, where they were all at sea on a difficult wicket, were New Zealand outplayed.

Can India win only on turning tracks? This was the question being asked when India failed to drive home the advantage in the final Test at Ahmedabad. Sachin Tendulkar undoubtedly missed an opportunity to force a win when he opted to bat again. The psychological grip passed out of his hands and New Zealand, heaving an obvious sigh of relief, then had little difficulty in forcing an honourable draw. That they lost only two wickets in 95 overs in the fourth innings tells various tales depending on one's viewpoint - the perfect nature of the pitch, the innocuousness of the Indian bowling or the never say die attitude of the New Zealand batsmen. One suspects it is a little bit of all three.

There were some similarities in the proceedings in the first Test and the third. On the earlier occasion too, the New Zealanders batted for as many as 135 overs to force an honourable draw when India seemed to hold all the aces. Of course one must give the home team full credit for staging such a major recovery after the trauma of having been shot out for 83 on the opening day of the series.

That early shock in fact should have convinced even the die hard Indian cricket fan that there should be no complacency against this New Zealand side and that there were no easy victories to be had. As their own veterans Danny Morrison and Ian Smith pointed out during the series, Stephen Fleming's team was one of the better teams from New Zealand to visit this country. It certainly compared well with Graham Dowling's side of 1969 - the only team to go home with a level series here - and John Wright's squad of 1988 which lost the rubber narrowly despite the presence of the peerless Richard Hadlee. The batting was strong, a fact that the Indian bowlers will perhaps grudgingly agree with after having been deprived of victory on two occasions because of gritty work by the batsmen. And if the bowling depended too much on Cairns, Nash and Vettori, the trio, well handled by Fleming, also knew how to keep the much vaunted Indian batting in check.

Indeed, from the Indian viewpoint there was only one real gain from the series and that was the unearthing of a reliable opening pair in Ramesh and Gandhi. Being a left-right combination was a built in advantage and the two showed sound temparament and a healthy appetite for runs, besides good judgement in running between wickets. Other than this, very little new was discovered. The batting remained strong. The top five batsmen in the line up now have a career average of 50 plus - something that has not happened in 67 years of Indian Test cricket. Dravid, Ganguly and Tendulkar as expected made plenty of runs. Kumble, predictably enough, took the lion's share of the wickets. Srinath and Prasad had their moments but the spin support for Kumble - Bharadwaj, Harbhajan and Joshi - was not up to the mark and this loophole will have to be plugged as soon as possible. One cannot say whether MSK Prasad consolidated his position as the team's No 1 stumper but he has managed to edge out Mongia for the moment.

All in all, it was a series of missed opportunities for India. The New Zealanders were worthy opponents but given the way events unfolded during the series, India should have done better. Looking back at the contest, one is sure Tendulkar and his team members will not be deriving full satisfaction - even though most of them did cross personal landmarks.