Daijiworld Media Network
New Delhi, Oct 20 : India, as a nation, is soaked in the festive spirit and even this match - originally scheduled for yesterday - had to be postponed by a day on account of 'Karva Chauth'. What adds to the mood is .. you guessed it .. cricket. Especially when the Indian team is dominating as it is. New Zealand capitulated in Dharamsala - conditions which were the closest to what they get back home. How will they cope with the dryness of Delhi? The biggest question though for the Kiwis - who are sliding like a barrel rolling downhill - is how to remain competitive? Hello and welcome to our live coverage as we seek to find all the answers.
The batting form of established players like Guptill, Taylor and even Williamson has been absolutely abysmal and that has made the task at hand seem herculean. Hence the home attack, deprived of the services of two of the major spinners and even the regular fast bowlers, looks like a million dollars. India aren't at their strongest. But what they are showing is how solid their bench strength is in these conditions. There's also the Champions Trophy to look forward to in around 8 months time. Huge opportunity for all these fringe players to stay in the reckoning. Performances like Hardik Pandya's won't harm their prospects whatsoever.
As far as the team news is concerned: Suresh Raina is still unavailable due to viral fever. So don't expect many changes, if at all, for India. Matt Henry might be back for New Zealand after being rested in the 1st ODI. Kaushik Rangarajan, our correspondent, sees Trent Boult bowling full steam on the side pitches. Maybe that's a clue. We'll wait to see what happens at the toss. Speaking of the toss, New Zealand just can't seem to call it right on this tour. They've lost four out of four. That hasn't helped. Williamson will be desperate to win one here.
India have won the toss and have opted to field
Williamson: 'Looks a dry surface, hope to make good use with the bat up front and get a competitive total. Short straight boundaries here so we'll look to get the partnerships early. Have to adapt with the ball if the dew comes in. First things first, have to get to a good start. Openers, top order need to assess. Tough to say as it looks like a dry surface. 3 changes - Boult, Henry and Devcich come in. Bracewell, Neesham and Sodhi miss out.'
Dhoni: 'We'll bowl. They have reduced the grass so it may slow down. If there is no variable bounce, we'll be happy. Dew will make it easier. NZ is a dangerous side. Important to respect the opposition. Have to start from scratch in the shorter formats. Would be much lesser in pace. Last game, the ball came on nicely. Bowlers will have to adapt to the length as this is a wicket with less bounce. Same team.'
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni(w/c), Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah
New Zealand (Playing XI): Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Kane Williamson(c), Ross Taylor, Anton Devcich, Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi(w), Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Matt Henry, Trent Boult
'The ball will come on. Pretty similar to Dharamsala but with a bit more turn. Drier. Many cracks. With the dew factor popping in, captains will want to chase. Dhoni did that in Dharamsala and I don't see anything different happening. Win the toss, bowl first, restrict the opposition to 250-260 and then chase it down,' Simon Doull and Sunil Gavaskar have set up the winning formula in their pitch report.
Match Preview :
The local bazaars of Old Delhi are decked up in finest regalia. It's peak festive season in this part of the country even if the scrubby interiors of the race-against-another-deadline Feroz Shah Kotla don't reflect it. Incidentally, the second India-New Zealand One-Day International actually had to be pushed back by a day to not have it clash with the North Indian festival of Karva Chauth. There's little time for festivities in the New Zealand camp, too, as a tour that promised much is quickly going pear-shaped.
After the idyllic settings of Dharamsala, the visitors return to the plains of Delhi, to drier temperatures and the hubbub of a bustling metropolis lifestyle. It is a venue that hasn't been too kind on them on two recent visits. It was here that Eoin Morgan's men ended New Zealand's World Twenty20 dream run in the semis in March. More recently, just over a month ago, Mumbai's batsmen ran New Zealand's bowlers ragged in a red-ball tour game, what in hindsight would seem like an eerie premonition of things to come.
Luke Ronchi, Corey Anderson and Tom Latham continually insisted ahead of this series that New Zealand are a formidable ODI unit. They are. But only Latham offered any validation to the claims in Dharamsala. The visitors' top order travails, fast becoming a recurring feature of this tour, is leaving the bowling too little to work with. Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor and even the usually excellent Kane Williamson have little statistical evidence to show for their long batting shifts in the nets while some of the shots played by the middle-order in the defeat in the series opener will no doubt come under severe scrutiny.
Interestingly, New Zealand's Dharamsala drubbing was not a result of their apparent ineptitude against the turning ball. It was India's patched-up seam attack, led by a surprisingly thrifty fast bowler and a rejuvenated debutant, that had strangulated New Zealand in the first ten overs. Despite there being no discernible support for spin, that Amit Mishra and Kedar Jadhav accounted for five New Zealand batsmen will worry Mike Hesson and Co. as they prepare to contend with a brownish Feroz Shah Kotla surface with an amicable spin history.
The hosts, meanwhile, made all the right noises when they went one-nil up. MS Dhoni appeared particularly pleased that two of his first throws of the experiment dice - Hardik Pandya, as the opening bowler, and Kedar Jadhav, the part-time off-spinner - fell seamlessly into place. But the shrewd captain that he is, Dhoni will know that one game, aided by a favourable toss outcome, is too small a sample size to draw any conclusion from. A 2-0 series lead is a good incentive for Dhoni & Co. to go about their experimenting ways later in the series.
When: India versus New Zealand, 2nd ODI, October 20, 13.30 IST; 08:00 GMT
Where: Feroz Shah Kotla, New Delhi
What to expect: Bright and sunny to start, a high of 34 degree Celsius, which will make make way for a more pleasant second-half of the game. Just a typical October day in the national capital. 'I don't think there is anything that I need to look at the Kotla pitch for,' Anil Kumble said with a chuckle on the eve on the game, with an obvious reference to his ten-peat at the venue. The curators, however, have indicated that while spin may play a part, run-making will not be wholly difficult.
Team News:
India:
India will be in no hurry to change the team after a strong collective show in the first ODI. Pandya and Jadhav will continue to audition for possibly meatier roles even in full-strength ODI squads. Suresh Raina is still on his way to regaining full fitness and although he enjoyed a light batting session two days out from the game, he has been ruled out of Thursday's clash. If the pitch does take spin, expect Dhoni to throw in Rohit Sharma's off-spinning abilities into the mix.
Probable XI: Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (c&wk), Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah
New Zealand:
New Zealand's workload management exercises may have to take a back seat or they run the risk of going 0-2 down and facing a mountain to turn things around. That means at least one, if not both, of Trent Boult and Matt Henry will be drafted back in to the side. Ish Sodhi has had a couple of forgettable outings at the venue. He conceded at over 10 when New Zealand lost that WT20 semifinal and was taken apart for 132 runs in the tour game against Mumbai at the same venue. Williamson and Hesson will have the eternal leg-spinner's dilemma. Even if expensive, Sodhi is a wicket-taking option, particularly on a spin-conducive wicket. If Sodhi does make the cut, Doug Bracewell could be left out.
Probable XI: Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson (c), Ross Taylor, Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi (wk), James Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Doug Bracewell/Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Trent Boult/Matt Henry.
Did you know?
- Rohit Sharma will playing his 150th ODI for India. The only other Indian players with 5000 runs after the 150th ODI are Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli
- MS Dhoni has won five out the six ODIs as captain in Feroz Shah Kotla with one match getting abandoned because of bad pitch.
- Tom Latham has scored a fifty in each match of the tour so far. 55 vs Delhi, 58 in Kanpur, 74 in Kolkata, 53 in Indore and 79* in Dharamsala.
-Luke Ronchi has been dismissed for a duck five times since 2015 - the joint most for any player along with Eoin Morgan.
- 0, 13, 25, 29, 21, 3 - Kane Williamson's last six scores versus India away from home