Date-stamped : 13 May94 - 18:24 India vs New Zealand, 2nd One-Day International Played at Auckland, 27th Mar, 1994 I've been very lucky doing IRC commentaries. Firstly I was on when the NZ/Pak ODI4 ended in a tie. Today, it was an "out of this world" innings by one particular player. The game was NZ vs India, ODI2. It was at Auckland, where both the NZ vs Pakistan ODIs had been played on a very substandard wicket, and coincidently where the tie had taken place. Today's wicket was reckoned by the TV crew as likely to play much better, so much so that Ken Rutherford batted when he won the toss and later we found out Azhar would also have done had HE won it. When Hartland and Young came out, however, it was obvious that the Indian bowlers were able to get heaps out of it. It was slow; it allowed sideways movement; it was stopping a little; and there was a bit of swing as well. Srinath was getting the ball to seam in and the batsmen weren't getting any in the middle of the bat. Later, when conditions had eased somewhat, it played slow, slow, slow, and the NZ batsmen Parore and Harris were having great difficulty in hitting the ball off the square. Parore, in particular, was having a hard time of it and, time and again, he played to leg off his pads straight to mid wicket or square leg. Harris did better, partucularly when given width outside the off stump, but there was nothing about this pitch which gave any hint of what was about to descend on the poor NZ bowlers. Harris played well for 50 off 72, aided by a bit of slogging at the end, and NZ got up to 142. Circumstances conspired to give us our man-of-the-match. Navjot Sidhu had a bit of a neck strain and was unable to take his place in the side. He was replaced by a bowler (Chauhan). This left India one batsman short and with a dangerously long tail. India promoted Sachin Tendulkar to open with Jadeja in the hope of getting some quick runs in the first 15 overs when the fielding restrictions were on. Quick runs? The game was, for all intents and purposes, OVER in 15 overs. Tendulkar had done his job and was out early in the 16th over. The raw stats said he scored 82 runs off 49 balls, but this was no slogger whose wicket didn't matter. Morrison, Pringle, and, later, Larsen had no idea what hit them. Some players are known for strokeplay, some for timing, some for sheer butchery. Today, Tendular displayed all three traits at will. There aren't too many players who can switch from a pushed drive with hardly any follow through that whistles past the bowler for four, to a clean, crisp, hit over the bowler's head for six over long on, to a savage pull-cum-on- drive off the back foot through the mid wicket area, according to the length and direction of the ball. His run chart showed 15? 4s and three sixes, the vast majority in the "V." The NZ bowlers weren't that bad really. Morrison was coming through at a reasonable clip - around the 130kph mark and bowled several demanding balls to the other players. The others bowled as usual. In the end, the players were laughing - they realised there was just nothing to be done - a sort of resigned submission. Had Jeremy Coney been playing he would have resurrected his white handkerchief for sure :-). To their credit they kept their heads up and kept going. It was Matt Hart who got him out. Tendulkar, as he has done often enough before, got over confident and started mucking about. First ball of the Hart over Tendulkar aimed a very cheeky sweep and missed it. Next ball he played lazily forward and was c&b from a leading edge. At this stage the "worm," the graph that charts each teams' comparative progress, was a real embarrassment for NZ. There was more far more daylight between the two curves than there was between the NZ curve and the x axis! Hart and Harris tidied it up for NZ after this, but the result was never in doubt. The other players, Jadeja, Kambli, Azhar, Manjrekar, all played well, but in comparison were pedestrian. The funniest part of the day for me was being asked several times who the man of the match was. Contributed by Geoff.Bethell (srg3lib@*grace.cri.nz) ====> epilogue On a more serious note yet. Despite losing (miserably) it was an awesome innings to watch. Tendulkar was in truly magnificent form. Virtually everything he hit was hit with a straight bat but with such power and timing that it went for four or six. In fact a large number of the fours were one bounce into the fence. What was worse he was still thinking. Every time the bowling was changed he would take 4 or 5 balls to look at the bowler and only then start playing strokes. He even watched the field changes carefully and played with them in mind not only hitting thrugh gaps but also when fine leg was brought up to let long on go back he played down through fine leg for four!!! The commentators will rave about this innings for a long time. For my money it was the best display of powerful well timed CRICKET that I have ever seen. I emphasise the cricket because all of the shots were classical cricket strokes played with a straight bat and a high elbow. Beautiful to watch. (someone on r.s.c., sorry! didn't get the name) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)