Test 1 - India v New Zealand - Session 3

The blogger tried. Desperately so. He even sashayed down the wicket and exposed Chris Martin to face 5 balls from Harbhajan.

But Jesse could not be denied. A sparkling century, not a false shot in the entirety of his innings and the calm he exuded augurs well for New Zealand cricket.

And yet.

7 overs in, 29 runs on the board, no wickets down. The ball will do only so much for another 8-10 overs. The wicket wont even do that (unless something dramatic happens between now and the start tomorrow morning).

Also, bundling out the opposition for under 300 in under 80 overs despite two centuries makes it, on balance, India's day.

From an Indian standpoint, they have to bat time.. Ideally, India should be batting 7 sessions and a bit - sometime between lunch and tea is when NZ should batting again. For two reasons - runs and the gap between the first and second test.

And if that is not possible, India has to still set its sights on batting once and batting big. At this point in time, the game is India's to squander. Day 2 cant come soon enough.