India looking to level the series by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Player:	DL Vettori, MS Dhoni
Event:	India in New Zealand 2008/09

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DateLine: 26th February 2009

 

Indian team, the world Twenty20 champions, will be under pressure to put up a performance worth that status meanwhile New Zealand will be looking to carry yesterday's momentum forward. There's little time to relish a win or pick up the pieces after a loss. For India it will be more of a mental check-in before they go in to try and save the series. The first question will be, do they play an extra specialist bowler? The ease with which Irfan Pathan was taken for runs on Wednesday could outweigh his value as a batsman.

 

Mahendra Singh Dhoni wasn't too displeased, though, with the XI India fielded in the first game. "With an extra seamer the batting order is not as long and as deep as you would prefer in a Twenty20 game," Dhoni said. "I was quite happy with the kind of combination that we played." It will be interesting if Dhoni goes in with the pair of Munaf Patel or Praveen Kumar and India interestingly don't see the first loss as a big setback.

 

Vettori, though, will want more of the same from Wednesday night: precise bowling, quick fielding and sensible batting. And Vettori himself will be the key bowler. Among bowlers who have played more than eight Twenty20 internationals, Vettori is behind only Umar Gul in terms of economy rate. And though the format is still young, those two have been the best bowlers in Twenty20 internationals.

 

Apart from the expectations from the teams, the whole game will have to live up to a challenge.

 

Teams

 

<> New Zealand (likely): Brendon McCullum (wk), Martin Guptill, Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Jacob Oram, Neil Broom, Nathan McCullum, Daniel Vettori, Ian Butler, Tim Southee and Iain O'Brien.

 

India : Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma.