Familiarity breeds comment, so here we go again. Once more India's much-vaunted batsmen collapsed in a crucial overseas Test; and yet again the only resistance came from Rahul Dravid. Today was a reminder of what could have happened at Headingley earlier this year had Sanjay Bangar not given Dravid support there. What had they done there – and Dravid here again – that their team-mates need to learn from? The same thing that New Zealand's bowlers did so well today to skittle out India cheaply: they focussed on the basics.

That seems obvious. Surely being technically sound is a hygiene factor at this level of the game. But excellence in cricket is often not about what one does beyond the basics, but how well one executes them. In theory, if your fundamentals are perfect, you cannot go wrong.

Dravid has been close to perfect over the last few months, relentlessly sticking to the basics; not just in terms of technique, but also in terms of temperament.

Dravid's compact batting, balanced stance, still head, assured footwork and shot selection are all out of the textbook; equally important are his unflagging concentration and his mental discipline. He is clear about the way he should bat in a Test match and once he's got that right, the context is often irrelevant. If he sticks to his task, the runs follow. And what of his team-mates?

Sachin Tendulkar has as good a technique as Dravid, and genius to boot, but has seemed unsure of what the right approach for him should be in a Test. Over the last couple of years, his waiting game has not worked. He is at his best when he plays his natural attacking game and tries to dominate, as he did in Kolkata a month ago. Something is clearly wrong when one sees a great batsman like him getting out lbw while shouldering arms, as happened today.

Bangar has more character than talent, despite which his focussing on what he can do rather than what he can't has led him to over-perform his way into a regular place in the Indian team. And Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, for all their abundant skills, have not placed the same emphasis on technique over the years – all three are often out because of inadequate footwork, as Sehwag was today.

The New Zealand bowlers also got it dead right. Shane Bond has the pace to be lethal on any pitch, but Daryl Tuffey, Jacob Oram and Scott Styris are all pedestrian bowlers. But they stuck to the basics and kept it simple. Given an attacking field with four slips and a gully, they stuck to a line just outside off, rarely straying on leg. They also found their length early and did not deviate much. They did not over-reach themselves as the Indian fast bowlers try to do so often, but let the conditions do their work for them.

Daryl Tuffey took 2 for 25 in 16 overs – when was the last time an Indian fast bowler had figures like that? One fancies the focussed Bangar has a better chance of coming up with figures like that than his erratic colleagues, Ajit Agarkar or Ashish Nehra.

The lesson in this – a universal one taught even in the Bhagwad Gita, a text the Indians should be familiar with – is that if one merely focuses on doing the right thing – playing the game the way it should be played – the fruits will surely follow. Dravid, Tuffey, Oram and Styris all did just that today. They decontextualised, and focussed on the means, and it worked for them. Dravid was out, in fact, when he got flustered by the little support he had left and had begun to go after the bowling. When he got rattled, so did his stumps.

Tangentially, ICC should also do the right thing by the umpires. Asoka de Silva, in the 12 months preceding today, has stood in 12 Test matches and 14 one-dayers. No wonder the poor overworked man has made so many mistakes, including one today, when he gave Tendulkar out lbw to a ball which would clearly have gone above the stumps.

Having eight elite-panel umpires to oversee Tests between 10 sides is a joke. The end ICC have in mind is clearly increased efficiency – but the means are wrong.

Amit Varma is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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