India keep shaky New Zealand to 224

New Zealand 224 for 9 (Franklin 72*, Zaheer 2-31) v India

	In pic: Zaheer Khan didn't take long to find form after returning from an injury layoff

New Zealand's one-day woes continued into a ninth straight game as their batting failed to cope with moist early-morning conditions in Vadodara. Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel swung and seamed the ball all right, but New Zealand will look back at how unremarkable their response was. The openers gifted their wickets, the middle order went into a shell, and only a fighting 94-run eighth-wicket stand between James Franklin and Nathan McCullum rendered respectability to their effort.

New Zealand would have been far worse off had Kane Williamson and Scott Styris not survived plumb lbw shouts early on the innings. The two calls got New Zealand 42 extra runs.

Zaheer returned to the side to find a welcome mat laid out by Brendon McCullum, who guided a widish delivery straight to second slip. Martin Guptill, who looked the most at ease, ran himself out soon. He hit straight to Gautam Gambhir, who had placed himself halfway between the stumps and the 30-yard circle, and ran off for a suicidal single.

Between those two dismissals, Williamson set the template for the day. His front foot went across to the first ball he faced. It swing in down the leg side to be called a wide, but Williamson had fallen over trying to correct the movement. Neither Williamson nor Ross Taylor could get rid of that tendency during their short stays. Taylor's wicket, though, came in a tame fashion as he went to drive Zaheer. The shot was played away from his body, and an inside edge ensued.

Taylor's No. 4 position has been a matter of debate with observers stating he should take more responsibility and bat at No. 3. Williamson's lack of ability to counterattack only seemed to highlight the notion. For the third game running, Williamson got off to a slow start, and did little to hit Munaf off his plan.

Munaf loves to bowl back of a length, just outside off, and wobble the bowl slightly either way. However, he tends to get a bit rattled when somebody uses that predictability to come down and hit him. In this series, though, no one has come close to doing that. And once Williamson allowed Munaf to do what he wanted, that lbw call seemed a matter of time with the batsman regularly falling over.

Once again, Styris was the most purposeful New Zealand batsman. He might have enjoyed two strokes of good luck, but he showed some intent, hitting Ashish Nehra for two boundaries through the covers in the 17th over.

Modern captains tend to go into the containment mode once the 15th over ends irrespective of how many wickets they might have got. Gambhir, who had put New Zealand in, was refreshingly old-school. When he saw R Ashwin turn the first ball, he set Test-match fields for Styris and James Franklin. Yuvraj, at leg slip, soon came into action taking a sharp low catch to send Styris back. Daniel Vettori followed did a McCullum, guiding Yusuf Pathan straight to slip for another sharp catch for Yuvraj, who later moved to leg slip to get rid of Gareth Hopkins too.

Having fallen behind the over-rate, though, Gambhir omitted to use four of Zaheer and Nehra's overs. Facing part-time spinners on a pitch that had eased out a bit, Franklin and N. McCullum had little trouble building a partnership. For about 14 overs, the bowlers didn't go out of their way to take wickets, and the batsman didn't go out of their way to score runs. That shouldn't take away from the batsmen: they could only face what was being bowled at them.

In the 45th over, they called for the Powerplay, but Gambhir still kept back the two fast bowlers. It was almost as if he was not concerned at all by the growing partnership. Eight came off the first Poweplay over, nine off the second, 14 off the third, but Gambhir brought back the fast bowlers only for the last two overs.

Franklin, responsible for much of the damage in the Powerplay, ended up with his first ODI fifty.