In awe of Virender Sehwag's batting, New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori on Friday said his bowlers are "fearful" of the marauding Indian opener who regulary throws their plans haywire with a swish of his willow.
Vettori said Sehwag, who struck a 26-ball 54 in the abandoned second one-dayer today, forced him to deviate from his plans.
"He is a great player and with great players the best laid plans can go away. That is what destructive batsmen do. They have people off their game plans," Vettori said after the match.
"I wouldn't say bowlers feel intimidated, but they are fearful of what is going to come. We are never sure what he is going to do, he is that good a player that he can hit all around the park. I suppose the bowlers run in and maybe for a second or two guess what is going to happen," he added.
Vettori said the Kiwi bowlers have to concentrate on bowling in the right areas and stop worrying about getting hit by the right-hander.
"I reckon we have got to tell ourselves that we have got to bowl in our area, and if we get hit from there we can live with that," he said.
Vettori said New Zealand could rein in West Indian swashbuckler Chris Gayle for once, but Sehwag was turning out to be a different kind of nemesis altogether.
"I suppose with Gayle we have got a feel of where he is going to hit and have more opportunities to block him out. But he has played exceptionally well," he said.
"Sehwag has got so many quality players around him, that it gives him the licence to play the way he plays. We have seen him hit the ball to a lot of areas," he added.
Asked about Friday's match which ended with India at 188 for four in 28.4 overs, Vettori said it would have been an interesting game had the weathergods permitted.
"It would have been an exciting game if we had got to 20 overs. We probably would have had to chase around 166. It would have been a good chase. It would have been difficult to field in the wet conditions," he said.
"We would have batted today. The wicket was lot better than it was for the T20 game, so we wanted to make sure we could put a score on the board. And in a way, try and put the pressure back on India because they have done so well with batting at the start. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work that way," said Vettori.
Vettori was pleased with the bowling performance of his side despite India's quick-scoring.
"There was a slight improvement from Napier. Other than Sehwag, they bowled better to the other batsmen. They were reasonably disciplined and pretty comfortable with most of it. But still we got a lot of work to do," he said.