Your editorial “Kiwis drubbing a wake-up call” in your edition dated November 5, is bang on target. No doubt, our team was on a high for some time and after their thumping victory over a demoralised Bangladesh team seems to have prompted some complacency against the New Zealand team, who too had gone down 2-0 against Sri Lanka. But our team forgot that of late, our batsmen, especially the top order, have time and again proved to be vulnerable to both swing and spin bowlers of opponent teams.
Our batsmen failed to have patience and temperament to stick to the ground and score runs. Added to our woe was the think tank decision to go in for spinning tracks at Pune & Mumbai, which backfired, as the NZ spinners proved to be more penetrative than our so called world class spinners.
Another folly was the selection of the playing XI, purely based on horses for courses. Mohd. Siraj was a pedestrian at Mumbai and another spinner or a batsman would have made our task easier. Well, it is now Rohit Sharma and his boys to face a tough tour Down Under, where they have to face pace and spin, to prove themselves all over again, which may be a herculean task ahead!
Capt. N. Viswanathan,
Coimbatore, India