Wellington: Former New Zealand all-rounder Craig McMillan said Tuesday that Indian batsmen’s technique of ‘throwing their hands at the ball like they do in India’ will not work here.
Indian batsmen’s inadequacies in adverse conditions were exposed as they crashed to an embarrassing 10-wicket defeat in just over three days in the opening Test here Monday.
“They didn’t make any adjustments in the way they played, they threw their hands at the ball like they do in India,” McMillan who has also coached the Kiwi side, told ‘Radio Sport’. “When the ball doesn’t bounce above knee high you can get away with some of those shots – in New Zealand you don’t,” the former middle-order batsman added.
McMillan lauded New Zealand’s veteran seam-bowling duo of Tim Southee and Trent Boult.
“When the ball’s swinging, and it did for most of that Wellington Test, Boult and Southee are geniuses,” he said. He also rated it ‘a terrific performance’ from the Black Caps.
“I haven’t seen India, the No.1 Test side in the world, dismantled like they were over those four days in Wellington,” he added.
New Zealand’s drubbing of India was hailed as one of the best in Black Caps’ history by the media here.
“Rare are the Tests in which the Black Caps beat the world’s No. 1 Test side,” the ‘New Zealand Herald’ wrote. “To do so against a team who had won seven straight Tests, each by a massive margin, makes it even more impressive,” it added.
News website ‘Stuff.co.nz’ pointed out that New Zealand entered the match after a 0-3 humiliation in their last series in Australia, making the win against India even more significant.
Agencies
