Wasting a Good Toss

Day 1 at Nagpur

So far in the series, New Zealand have averaged one poor day per test. They recovered well from the Sehwag mauling on the first day at Ahmedabad, and the batting collapse on the second day at Hyderabad. 148 for 7 at Nagpur is a far stickier mess to be in.

B-Mac's injury at the start of the game upset the apple cart, but Vettori's decision to bat first was probably the right one on intent. I guess what this innings has so far showed is that two good batting performances alone do not mean the batsmen are ready to bat out of position and do the job.

However, the pitch was flat and dry and the bowling wasn't exceptionally brilliant either (as the wounded soldiers Ryder and Baz showed). Barring Martin Guptill, who got a peach from Sreesanth, every batsman was complicit in his own dismissal. My main complaint for the day would be Ross Taylor's dismissal; the guy would make a stack of runs more if he played straight (more often). Vettori is making the requisite optimistic noises, but it would have looked a lot better had Ryder not been dismissed so close to the end of the day.
Time for Southee to raise his batting game and support Baz tomorrow, then.

And lastly, how weird was that Ryder-McCullum partnership? They must've been 30 runs short of what they would have added if able to run normally.