11 August,2010 09:19 AM IST | | Trevor Chesterfield
India's lack of preparation for this limited overs tournament in the Sri Lanka heartland has been ruthlessly exposed by a determined New Zealand side led by Ross Taylor.
Winners of the Asia Cup at the same venue seven weeks ago, they arrived here fresh from a Test victory and shared series success in Colombo last Saturday and almost 74 hours later, crashed to a humiliating 200-run defeat.u00a0
Forgotten in the middle of this embarrassing carnage was how the Kiwis, wobbling at 28 for three after the Kane Williamson nine-ball duck on his ODI debut, applied basics and skipper Ross Taylor and all-rounder Scott Styris put together what turned out to be a match-winning partnership of 190 for the fourth wicket. In fact, the Black Caps stand-in captain Taylor (95) and Styris (89) had individual totals higher than India's lamentable innings of 88.
The Kiwis are missing their normal captain Daniel Vettori and Brendan McCullum yet showed they are going to provide entertainment over the next 18 or so days.
The Taylor-Styris partnership was based on sound ODI batting technique and skills with both employing typical sweeps, pulls, the occasional slog-sweep, reverse sweep, drives and cuts.
It was entertainment all right and the India bowlers were given a lesson of length bowling. Even Ashish Nehra struggled at times to force the Kiwis to make mistakes on a pitch that was on the soft side.
They picked off some quality shots and were quick to take advantage of anything loose, which happened often Taylor in particular was in good touch. He worked the ball around well, and considering he has faced little genuine bowling since the T20 games against Sri Lanka in Miami back in May, he was in quick form.u00a0u00a0
While man of the match Taylor is not complaining, after all, India were thought to be the better side on paper and New Zealand looked the fresher side.
It was the old story of getting Virender Sehwag early and other wickets will follow. In this case batsmen were offering slip catching practice with Taylor taking four catches.
Yet from the moment Kyle Mills had Sehwag troubled by the shorter ball, the Indian opener was struggling.
There is a lot of hard work ahead for India over the next six days to get their act together before playing Sri Lanka on Monday. Maybe bowling coach Eric Simons might want to learn how to bowl the right length on this venue from Jacob Oram and Daryl Tuffey.
