Nottingham - Both East Midlands climate and the Indian batting were something of a mixed bag in this World Cup Super six match.

The pleasure of a Sachin Tendulkar innings of promise, with its hallmark style and brushes of elegance, was soon terminated, and it was a generally disappointing show. The Kiwis faired little better as Adam Parore's wicketkeeping was as untidy as some of the strokeplay. The top order performance was seemingly not sort from which an eventual total of 251 would evolve to set New Zealand a challenging target.

There is always going to be an element of risk for a batsman going too far forward and offering Dion Nash, the bowler, the rare sight of three stumps and Tendulkar did just that.

The game also caught up with Nash. His bowling was at times as scruffy as Parore's show behind the stumps: five wides and three no balls was not a good return; little wonder he was the most expensive of the Kiwi bowlers. On a pitch offering some sideways movement and bounce at times none of the bowlers put it in the right place.

At times they did not put it in any place at all with 10 wides contributing to an exorbitant number of extra balls which had to be bowled: no captain should suffer such nightmares as 23 extra deliveries for the batsmen to face and free hits at that.

After all, 3.5 overs is an horrendous number of bowling misdemeanours. Little wonder India managed to score 251. It is a wonder they did not make more capital out of the New Zealand errors although it is hard not to imagine umpires David Shepherd an Darrell Hair thinking of dashing off a note at lunch complaining to the umpires' association about unfair employment practice, citing the fact that they had to wave their arms around too much. Furthermore neither, judging by today's performance, were semaphore signalling experts during their days in the sea scouts.

If Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly also failed to impress with their normally fluent strokeplay and some of the elegance you normally expect was missing at least Jadeja did not mislead India's followers. A top-innings score of 76 off 102 balls with some touches of smash and grab and flamboyance as well lifted the team's followers.

It has not been a happy World Cup for India. Losing Tendulkar for a few days as a result of his father's untimely death and then falling to Zimbabwe had made them emotionally vulnerable at a crucial time of the tournament. Even Mohammad Azharuddin, in what is his last World Cup performances, looked insecure; and this despite two healthy cover-drives which had that old flash of class.

Robin Singh also reached the upper 20s but like the weak, watery sun leaving an etching of some quality, he too disappeared thanks to a smart bit of fielding which ran him out.

As for the rest, it was not a session to remember: there have been better this World Cup, some more memorable than others.