Munaf should have played instead of Irfan

The title of this does suggest that the tool of hindsight has been used rather effectively by me, but the fact is that buffering one’s batting line-up by getting in an ineffective bowler at the number eight position not only reduces the potency of the attack but also lulls the top-order batsmen into a false sense of complacency. The end result is that not only do the bowlers leak runs like a water-tanker with a huge gaping hole in it, but also the fact that batsmen procrastinate the task of sticking it out for an over or so and only then playing that cross-batted stroke.

This is why, I have no doubts in my mind whatsoever that the selection of Munaf Patel would have made better sense than the younger of the Pathan brothers. My surmise is that this is where Team India began their first endeavour today, to lose the game.

Earlier, the toss did go the Kiwi way, who had no qualms in fielding first; something that they seemed to have thought out well. Still, Virender Sehwag’s explosions at the top had all the makings of an early upsetting of the New Zealand applecart as carted three successive sixes to open his account! He later his fourth too, but the temptation to smash the ball out of the shorter boundary made him play a stroke that he may not have played on most occasions; an ugly swipe across the line that would have had coaches of most ten-year-olds sending them away on a four kilometre long jog as punishment.
The rest of the Indian batsmen – bar Suresh Raina – were blown away as much by the Black Caps as they were by the wind. Rohit Sharma has been afforded one chance too many, and his problem has been quite clearly the lack of converting his talent into runs. His across the line swipe was only matched by Yuvraj Singh’s ugly sweep that had him LBW to Daniel Vettori. Dhoni’s form with the bat took a beating for a change, and at that stage, the Indians were in a danger of being bowled inside their 20 overs!

Yusuf Pathan’s big hitting prowess has been well demonstrated in the last one year or so, and he almost looked like taking the match away from the hosts by emulating Sehwag and smashing three biggies in a row. But just one when thought that the fourth one was also disappearing into the stands, Jacob Oram picked up a blinder at the fence to peg India back again. It was only Raina’s matured, unbeaten half century that gave the tourists a semblance of a chance to make a match out of it as India ended on 162/8 in their allocated twenty.

However, if Raina could do it, the usually hard hitting Brendon McCullum could do it better. Only this time, McCullum played an inning that so seeped in responsibility that it seemed like his alter ego was doing all the batting. At the other end, Martin Guptill – also one of handful few to have scored a century on ODI debut – took a firm liking to Irfan Pathan like a duck does to water, and got an 18 from his very first over. Guptill was lucky though; off the very first delivery he faced, he could very well have been declared LBW after he shouldered arms to an Ishant Sharma in-swinger, but was let off by the official.

Harbhajan Singh got rid of Guptill, but the situation rapidly deteriorated for the Indians as first Ross Taylor, and then Jacob Oram kept carting the bowling to all parts of the ground. By the time the 19th over started, only 12 were needed off even balls, and with none of the front-line bowlers left, McCullum finished the Indians off with a six off Yusuf Pathan.

McCullum was rightly awarded the Man-of-the-Match, and although this could be considered a minor blip on the Dhoni-radar, he needs to coax the batsmen into playing a trifle more rationally than what they did today, and indeed in their previous T20 match against Sri Lanka.