Batsmen must show new zeal

One day India will win a series abroad and break the jinx, but judging from the first day's play at Wellington, that day continues to be a mark on an unprinted calendar.

You do not win matches, normally, with 161 runs on the board. Not against quality opposition playing on familiar turf. Unless you travel the same road as them. The Indian bowlers tried to find the route, but ended up getting lost in a maze of insipid line and length. The field was enveloped in uncommon silence. What tomorrow will bring is anybody's guess, but Wright's first job must be to ensure that his players do not walk in with the hangdog look they carried away today. It was never going to be easy.

The Indians have come to New Zealand with two searing objectives: the first, to win an overseas Test series, and the second, to acquire valuable match practice for the World Cup.

They have been met with conditions suitable to test the strongest mettle. Hellish winds, brutal deliveries, a grassy pitch and an umpire who puts his finger up with the poor timing of a Shewag bringing down his bat to an inswinger.

To be fair to them, the package was delivered with no parts missing. Apart from Ganguly being dropped twice, the Indians had little to cheer about. But they aren't here on a cruise. They're here to strengthen their new-found resilience. The Indians have, for some time now, been suspected of developing a cricketing spine. It's time they located it and fought back.

And the only ones who can fight back are the batsmen. There are six world class batsmen in the side, but only one who took the title seriously. The other five could find worse ways to spend an evening than studying Dravid's technique of dodging, ducking, defending and driving 173 deliveries.

The second person they could study is umpire Ashoka de Silva. Time and again he has given shockers, and the commentators sympathize with a man who can, apparently, neither see nor hear clearly due to noise, pollution, lack of sleep or plain human failing. De Silva is only strengthening the case for technology to assist umpires who are all too human on the field.

About the only way the Indians can tackle him and render him harmless is to put bat to ball every time and avoid all LBW variations that De Silva finds offensive -- ball rolling on knee, ball pitching outside leg stump, ball nicking bat on way to pad etc.

A difficult call, and one perhaps as impossible to do as one of the seamers getting five for fifty. But the task for the Indians is clear -- if they want to even draw the series, a mop-up operation is needed. If they want to edge closer to that cup in South Africa, three of the celebrated batsmen might consider adding another ton to their tally. Will they take the challenge? The memory of Headingley is still warm.

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