India know better now. Rather, India should know better now and coach Ravi Shastri is hoping that the sense of deja vu that accompanies such a feeling will help his team cope better when the second Test against New Zealand begins at the Hagley Oval on Saturday.
“We are not here to give any excuses,” said Shastri on the eve of the match. “We were outplayed in that first Test but I always believe that when you are on a run, like we were, a shake-up like that is good because it opens your mindset. When you are on the road winning all the time or you have not tasted defeat, you can have a closed mindset, a fixed mindset.”
Shastri added: “Here, once you have seen what has happened, there is an opportunity to learn, which is good. You know what strategies NZ are employing, mentally you are now prepared and you have your plans of how to counter them. It’s a good lesson and I am sure the boys are up for the challenge coming up tomorrow.”
New Zealand’s pacemen came into the first Test with a plan and they executed it perfectly and even though it didn’t feel like a crushing defeat to Kohli, to everyone one else, a 10-wicket loss was exactly that.
The New Zealand plan was a simple one. With the new ball, they concentrate on trying to get the it to swing – pitch it up, on the right spot, let it swing. Once the ball stopped swinging as much, the Kiwis moved into containment mode and that is where the short ball was their ace in the pack. It helped them control the flow of the runs and also get wickets (including that of Virat Kohli).
According to data put out by ESPNcricinfo, India’s batsmen scored 126 runs off 301 short and short-of-good-length balls across their two innings in Wellington, at a rate of 2.51 per over. New Zealand went after short and short-of-good-length balls more often, and ended up with 130 runs off 150 such balls, at 5.20 per over.
The data rests on two main points. One, New Zealand bowled double the short balls India did and two, India showed a lot of restraint against that line of attack while the hosts chose a more proactive approach.
Now, Shastri and Kohli are calling for a different approach. With short-ball exponent Neil Wagner likely to make it to the NZ playing XI, even more short balls are in order.
When New Zealand’s bowlers put the short-ball question to the batsmen, they usually have fielders in the deep, one around the square-leg umpire and another at short-leg. In essence, they are not bowling it in anger. So the decision of attacking the short ball is not an easy one to make – the shot itself is the riskiest and potentially the most dangerous shot to play in cricket. The ball will always be in the air for a bit after you play the stroke. To play the shot safely, the batsman would need to roll his wrists and given that the ball is usually around chest high or higher, that is not an easy play to pull off.
If the ball does get too big on the batsman, the top edge comes into the question and then, there is always the danger of being hit on the helmet (as Rahane was in the first Test) or on the body. The NZ strategy challenges the Indian batsmen to take risks – a challenge they haven’t quite taken up as yet.
The question Indian batsmen will be asking themselves on the eve of the second Test is a simple one: how much risk to take?
But while the question is a simple one, the answer is anything but simple. There is a thin red line between being brave and being foolish. Kohli wants his team to be competitive and that means they will have to find a way to force the issue. But picking the right ball to play and the right one to leave becomes vital.
The Test will also show us whether Shastri and Kohli have truly managed to make their team play fearless cricket. To play the shot confidently, India’s batting unit – which has been the weak link in away tours – will have to find a way to stop fearing the outcome. You can’t play a half-hook, it’s either all in or nothing.
Knowing that a failure or poor shot selection could see them come in for sharp criticism, will call for strength of character that is not easily found.
As Shastri said during the press conference: “Everyone has to adapt in these conditions. No two conditions are the same. I mean a pitch on day one in India will be different from a pitch in England or New Zealand. You have to adapt.”
Indeed, from India’s point of view, Kohli will want the batsmen to not just adapt...but evolve as well.
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