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Wellington: After Iain O’Brien trapped Gautam Gambhir lbw with the new ball at the start of the final session of Day Three, the exhausted pacer ran towards the dejected batsman and gave him a pat-cum-push. If one takes into account a Sunday-to-Sunday period, which includes the final two days of the second Test, O’Brien had bowled 148 balls to Gambhir without success. And when his moment finally came, he instinctively showed his appreciation for the opener’s back-to-back run marathons. If the pat was the admiration Gambhir deserved, the mock push manifested the trauma that the batsman in the zone had given to those around him during his long in-the-face knocks.
The last seven match days of the series have seen Gambhir the batsman at the crease. It might have been a cameo at times but mostly, it has been a one-man show. In his last three innings, where he has scores of 137, 23 and 167, he has spent roughly 15 hours on the field and faced 740 balls. While he saved India the blushes with a gritty display in the last Test, he has helped the team stretch the lead to 531 in Wellington.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that in case the tired New Zealand bowlers have nightmares in the coming days, the probability is high that a short left-handed batsman with nimble footwork might figure in them prominently. In the last two Tests, five New Zealand bowlers have bowled over 100 hundred balls to Gambhir with skipper Daniel Vettori heading the list with 172 ineffective deliveries.
As the series nears its end, the pre-tour talk about Vettori knowing the Achilles’ heel of his Delhi Daredevils team mates as he had bowled at them at the nets during IPL’s Season One seems naive.
In the zone
They say that familiarity breeds contempt and Gambhir proved it with his play on Sunday. Since the left-hander has faced the New Zealand bowlers more often than his team mates of late, he had a been-there-seen-that air in his approach. He could pre-empt the bowlers’ plans and read what was coming his way when fielders were moved around.
When Vettori flighted the ball on his off stump with a packed off-side field and a slip in place to induce a mishit, Gambhir stepped out to hit it to the wide mid-wicket for a four or lobbed it over the long-on fence for a six....
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