Nov. 4: Virender Sehwag whistled when he batted, joked with umpires asking for a free hit in a Test, and then returned to the pavilion after a yet another big hundred, chatting and laughing with his runner Gautam Gambhir.
These were telling images of how easy it had been for him and India on Day One of the first Test against New Zealand here on Friday — at the end of which the hosts stood at 329/3. Sehwag scored a typically brisk 173 off 199 balls (24x4, 1x6) while his partner for three-quarters of the day Rahul Dravid slowly crept his way out of a rough patch with a 227-ball 104 (14x4).
Together the duo set the Indian record for the highest partnership for the second wicket against New Zealand with a 237-run stand, eclipsing the 204 set at Auckland in 1976 by Surinder Amarnath and Sunil Gavaskar.
Plenty more records would have fallen if Sehwag had not got bored and tired, falling over a straight Daniel Vettori (1/69) delivery that took the stumps and Dravid had not been unlucky to bottom-edge a short and wide Chris Martin (1/52) delivery onto his wicket in the final session.
At close, Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S. Laxman were batting on 13 and 7 respectively, the two giants looking good to set India up with a mammoth first innings score. On a slow pitch, where the bowlers had to put in that extra bit of effort to get any sort of assistance, the Kiwis’ best chance lay in winning the toss and batting first or alternatively, putting the home batting under pressure by scalping a few at the top. Neither happened.
It wasn’t the number of runs scored on the day, it was lack of challenge the Kiwi attack posed to the batsmen that sucked the competitive edge off day’s proceedings. Sehwag took three fours off Kiwi pace spearhead Chris Martin in the third over of the day, and shrugged off the loss of Gambhir in the 12th over by feeding on the leg-side offerings from debutant pacer Hamish Benett (0/47) and the Kiwis’ second spin option Jeetan Patel (0/79) to get to his fifty in 49 balls.
SCOREBOARD
India
Gautam Gambhir b Ryder 21, Virender Sehwag b Vettori 173, Rahul Dravid b Martin 104, Sachin Tendulkar batting 13, V.V.S. Laxman batting 7
Extras (b-5, lb-2, w-1, nb-3) 11
Total (in 90 overs) 329/3
Fall of Wickets: 1-60, 2-297, 3-317.
Bowling: Chris Martin 16-2-52-1 (3nb), Hamish Bennett 15-2-47-0 (1w), Daniel Vettori 28-3-69-1, Jess Ryder 10-1-44-1, Jeetan Patel 13-1-79-0, Kane Williamson 8-0-31-0.