India aim to be Cinderella, not the ugly sister

India's three-Test contest in New Zealand will determine just how far this Indian team has progressed over the past two years, writes Dileep Premachandran in his Guardian blog. Over the last decade, India have always lifted their game against the best in the business, winning seven and losing nine of their Test matches against Australia. But when it comes to touring New Zealand, they have have often been suspicious victims of the Hollywood syndrome.

The Test series that commences in a few hours is perhaps the biggest test of the resolve that has been the most eye-catching aspect of India's cricket on the road to redemption. It started in England a few months after the World Cup debacle. Talk of that series win usually centres around Zaheer Khan's superb spells at Trent Bridge, but the spadework had been done at Lord's, with a combination of rain and obduracy keeping a rampant England at bay. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, derided as a show pony by some in the media, was the unlikeliest of heroes on that final day, stonewalling with a strength of purpose that had seemed beyond his Russian roulette style of batting.