Hyderabad awaits Test action

New Zealand started the first Test at Ahmedabad short of confidence and a touch unsure about a few of their players. They ended it on a high, but a couple of concerns remain: Can the opener Tim McIntosh, if he is picked, prove to the world that he is not a walking wicket? Will BJ Watling get some runs at No.3? How will the batsmen handle a track that supposedly has more bounce? The Ahmedabad pitch was flat and the middle order cashed in. Ross Taylor expects the track at Uppal, hosting its first Test match, will have a bit more for the spinners. Hyderabad has hosted three Tests before this, all against New Zealand, at the multi-purpose Lal Bahadur stadium.

India went to Ahmedabad with a couple of worries - the batting form of Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid, and the bowling form of the spin twins Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha. Dravid scored a hundred in the first innings, but Gambhir and the spinners didn't have much to smile about on a batsmen-friendly track. All of them practised hard in the nets in Uppal. As ever, Dravid had a long net session. Gary Kirsten fired down short balls from a tennis racquet and Dravid spent his time swaying away or riding the bounce.

The conditions are slightly damp as there was some rain earlier in the week and It will be interesting to see whether the strip will provide some seam movement on the first day. Some have said that there might be bit more spin on this new pitch but Uppal has traditionally produced batsmen-friendly surfaces. We will have to wait and see how this particular track turns out.

Ryder and Williamson defy India

Jesse Ryder, playing his first Test in 14 months, and Kane Williamson, playing his first Test, batted with the assurance of gnarled pros to help New Zealand clamber out of trouble to a position where they have an outside chance of a first-innings lead. The prospect of New Zealand being asked to bat again had loomed large at lunch, after they lost both Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor in the space of six runs when they were less than halfway to the follow-on mark.

Ryder and Williamson put on 194 - New Zealand's second-highest stand for the fifth wicket - as India's bowlers toiled for more than two sessions without success. It was only in the final over of the day that India broke the partnership. Two deliveries after Ryder brought up his third Test century - all of which have been against India - with a carve through cover, Sreesanth got one to nip past Ryder's bat and into the pad. By then, New Zealand had belied expectations that they would be rolled over by the world's No. 1 side.

The pair had just about survived a nervy six-over spell before lunch, but were more confident after the break - Williamson began the session with a wonderful back-foot drive through cover. Both batsman were circumspect early on, with few attacking strokes against India's senior bowlers Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan. They started to be more enterprising once Sreesanth and the part-time spinners - Virender Sehwag and Suresh Raina - were brought on. Sreesanth nearly got the breakthrough when Ryder wafted at a wide delivery on 11, only for Rahul Dravid to fluff a shoulder-high chance at a wide first slip.

After that, Ryder dished out plenty of boundaries, using his feet and punching Raina past mid-on, and pulling Sreesanth to midwicket. Williamson was also secure at the other end, using the sweep and cut whenever the spinners dropped short and made unfussy progress towards a half-century. India were out of ideas on a pitch with nothing it in to alarm the batsmen, and even called on Sachin Tendulkar for a rare bowling spell.

Even with the second new ball, India couldn't hassle batsmen much. Ojha got the odd one to turn and beat the outside edge, and India's one big chance after tea was when Williamson nicked Zaheer to the keeper when on 56, but the umpire Kumar Dharmasena didn't pick it up, to the disbelief of the Indians.

New Zealand will be particularly pleased with the fightback since they had to battle spin for much of the innings. This is their first international match since the drubbing in the one-dayers in Bangladesh last month, a series in which their batting was clueless against Bangladesh's army of slow bowlers.

Ryder called for a runner before tea, as he was struggling with cramps, but even that didn't hamper his footwork against spin. One of the highlights of his innings was when he sashayed down the track to loft Harbhajan over long-on for six.

His partner Williamson had started his one-day career with a couple of ducks, but there was no such stuttering start to his Test career. Plenty of times he showed why people in New Zealand rave about his backfoot technique, rocking back to crash the ball through covers. It was a dead track, and it's still early days, but New Zealand seem to have unearthed a solid batsman their traditionally fragile batting could do with.

Even before Ryder and Williamson came together, the New Zealand batsmen were comfortable against everything thrown at them by India. McCullum, needing to justify his place as a specialist batsman after giving up wicketkeeping gloves earlier this year, continued the form that has resulted in his most productive phase in Tests - two hundreds and three half-centuries in his previous six Tests.

Taylor barely scored in the V and used the cut to make much of his runs. It was only after McCullum began to open up with a lovely on-drive against the turn off Ojha and a powerful uppish cut off Zaheer more than half an hour after the start, that Taylor switched gears - a bunch of boundaries against Harbhajan bringing up his half-century. Soon after, he gifted his wicket, gently clipping Harbhajan to midwicket, and trudged off with his hand on his forehead.

Worse followed as McCullum, hoping to become the first New Zealand opener since Stephen Fleming in 2004 to make a Test century on tour, fell to a classical spinner's dismissal: a loopy delivery dipped in and spun sharply away, dragging him out of the crease and beating his bat, and MS Dhoni did the rest. New Zealand were in deep trouble at 137 for 4 before another big partnership made it their day.

Bowling West Indies' biggest worry

The batting has slipped a bit too, but West Indies' attack has been the worst in Test cricket over the last three years

In a little over two weeks West Indies will be taking on a challenge that is among the toughest in Test cricket: a tour to Sri Lanka. The magnitude of the task before West Indies is obvious from the following two stats: in the last six years, Sri Lanka's win-loss record at home is next only to Australia's; meanwhile, West Indies' away record during this period is the worst among all teams (excluding Zimbabwe, who've only played four away Tests during this period).

That West Indies have fallen from the lofty perch they occupied in the 1980s and 90s is obvious, but what still boggles the mind is the extent to which they've slipped. According to the ICC rankings, they're seventh in Tests - barely above New Zealand - and eighth in ODIs, only a few decimal points better than Bangladesh. Since January 2004, they've won a mere five Tests, and never more than one in any given year. During this period they've lost 37, which has ensured that their overall win-loss ratio has dipped below one (152 wins, 154 losses in 465 matches). After the three Tests in Sri Lanka, it's almost certain that the gap between wins and losses will increase further.

The table below lists West Indies' year-wise performances in Tests since 2000. What is immediately apparent is the manner in which their bowling has completely fallen away since Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose retired: in every year since 2003, the bowling average for West Indies has exceeded 40, which is a shocking stat for a team who, not that long ago, used to boast some of the greatest fast bowlers to have ever played the game. During this period their batting average has been at least 10 fewer than their bowling average every year, while the batting average has exceeded 30 only once, in 2004. The last four years have been poor, and the two heavy defeats against South Africa in 2010 means the difference this year is nearly 25.

In the last three years West Indies' bowling average has been the worst among all teams, including Bangladesh. In these 24 Tests they've conceded nearly 45 runs per wicket. Kemar Roach is the only one of their bowlers who has taken more than 25 wickets during this period at an average of less than 30. Sulieman Benn, the highest wicket-taker, with 50, averages more than 40 runs per wicket.

The sorry state of West Indies' bowling attack is further illustrated by checking out the averages of their highest wicket-takers in the last eight years. Only eight bowlers have taken more than 50 Test wickets during this period, of which two - Corey Collymore and Pedro Collins - have managed sub-35 averages. All the others have had to toil much more, with the averages for five of them either closing in on, or exceeding, 40. During the golden years in the 1980s, all eight bowlers who took more than 50 wickets in the decade did so at averages of less than 30. That's obviously a feat that can't be achieved in today's bat-dominated era, but West Indian fans would be justified in expecting from their bowlers significantly better numbers than they are managing currently.

The batting has suffered too, but the decline hasn't been as pronounced when compared to their numbers in earlier decades. Comparing West Indies' decade-wise batting stats since 1970 shows that their batting average dropped from 33.05 in the 1980s to 27.89 in the 1990s, and it stayed there between 2000 and 2009. The bowling, on the other hand, has been in freefall.

While the bowling has little to recommend itself, the batting has at least offered something to cheer about. When they have played, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan have all been among the runs. Chanderpaul has clearly been the leader, averaging almost 65 since 2008 and almost 54 since 2003. Those are easily stats that compare favourably with the best batsmen in the world, something that can't be said for any of West Indies' bowlers during the last 10 years.

However, despite these few batting stars, West Indies' overall batting stats over the last three years are among the worst when compared to other teams. Part of the reason for this has been the absence of top players for some matches recently. Despite this, their overall batting average in these three years is better than those of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Darren Sammy, the new captain, has promised a fresh approach in Sri Lanka, but given the lack of bowling firepower, especially in the sort of conditions that are likely to prevail in Sri Lanka, West Indies' bowlers could be in for another hiding. How well the batsmen perform could well decide how much they push Sri Lanka.