The Kiwi Challenge-can The Kiwis Beat India in India

India
vs. New Zealand-The Kiwi Challenge

We
had witnessed the 2012 Olympics and our Motherland India had achieved some
medals due to the constant hard work of the sportspersons of which we need to
be proud of but we should be careful that we must not boost too much about this
too. This also shows that other sports can also move along with cricket and if
we have good coaches then there is nothing called as ‘impossible’. We would
have achieved more medals in Olympics if we would not have come across a number
of controversies in the field of tennis, archery.

The
field of cricket has also not been free from controversies as we did have a
controversy recently and had seen how a world class player like Laxman had been
treated on by the Indian selectors and the Captain. It’s also quite strange
that a Captain like Dhoni could not also be reachable by him!!

Do
some of these sportspersons think they are Ministers of the country-unapproachable??
The sportspersons should rise above their egos and place the country first
rather than their egos.

The
media too had not given much importance to the Olympics 2012 tournament as for
the past several years many leading newspapers had a leading built up about
Olympics with its itinerary but this time this was missing.

The Test series
between India and New Zealand has began on the 23^rd August, 2012.We
need to keep an eye on this series as India is now ranked as the fifth team
after Pakistan.

South Africa had
recently dethroned England from the Number 1 position in Test cricket as they
beat England 2-0. The non selection of Kevin Petersen had done them in here as
he had already tendered his resignation from all international matches. Andy
Flower does think that it was the lucrative IPL which had done him in. This indeed
shows the urgent need for a window for this tournament. England had dethroned
the Indian team earlier from the No.1 position in Test Cricket earlier.

Looking at the
first test New Zealand against India, the Kiwis had played rather poorly!!The
youngsters and the fresh faces in the Indian team had proved that they can fill
up the boots of Laxman and Rahul Dravid but can they repeat the same during the
second test match at Bangalore remains to be seen though!!

It’s rather a
wonder that the Kiwis were not able to play spin when most players know that
the pitches in India would aid spin.

Can New Zealand rise
above their first test performance and make way for an even fight as we must
not forget here that they are now being trained by Mike Hesson.

Though Daniel Vettori
will be missed much as the Indian pitches would surely aid spin as Chawla and
Ojha both have been selected for the Test series against New Zealand, the pressure
would rest on Jeetan Patel again but he should indeed look how Monty Panesar of
England had performed in India where his first test wicket haul was of the
Master Blaster, Sachin Tendulkar. Though the New Zealand team is without
Stephen Fleming, Chris Cairns, Tuffey and Shane Bond, it would surely take a huge
toll on the Kiwi players. But the Kiwis should not be underestimated too as
they should take the inspiration that they had drawn most of their Test matches
against the Indian cricket team earlier.

But one thing is
certain that the Kiwis have everything to play for in the second test and hopefully
they would give a better performance in this second Test series.

Therefore keeping
my fingers crossed as New Zealand is considered as my second home with West
Indies the third one indeed.