Vettori promises hard fight

Wherever you go in New Zealand, as soon as they come to know you are from India and are here for the cricket, a question comes up, "So how many days will your team take this time? Three? Four?" It's all banter that goes the other way too, but it always starts with how weak the New Zealand team is. Daniel Vettori, the New Zealand captain, knows the public deserves better than what happened in Hamilton, a tame defeat in four days. It's not the loss that hurts them as much, but the manner in which they lost.

"They [public] want results, just like we want results," Vettori said on the eve of the Napier Test. "They probably need to see the New Zealand team to come out and fight. The big thing about the New Zealand public is that as long as they see the New Zealand cricket side fight for a result - doesn't matter if there is a hard-fought win or a hard-fought loss, I think they are satisfied. The performance we put together in Hamilton wasn't consistent with that." In Napier they need to put a fight to keep the series alive. In the last 20 years, New Zealand have been on the wrong side of a dead rubber at home only twice.

New Zealand have been working hard over the last four days, in the nets, in the gym and on their mental make-up. The target is pretty clear: a marked improvement in all the facets of the game, from top-order batting to middle-order batting to opening bowling to spin bowling to fielding to perhaps some out-of-the-box thinking.

The troubles start with a young top order, where Martin Guptill, Tim McIntosh and Daniel Flynn (if he passes the fitness test tomorrow) have 14 Tests between them and seem to offer India an easy target. Vettori, though, wants to repose trust in them and not fiddle with the batting order. He feels it is not a question of quality but of application. Vettori wants the batsmen to work on the longevity of their innings, play out at least 120 overs.

A change in the batting order, which would see him, Brendon McCullum or Jesse Ryder move up, is not being considered for now. An unconventional school of thought might suggest picking six batsmen, four bowlers, a wicketkeeper, and then deciding the batting order - no matter if a bowler or a wicketkeeper is better placed than a specialist batsman.

"The onus is on the top six to do the job," Vettori said. "If they do the job then Brendon and I can complement to that. We can mix and match sometimes, but the onus is always on top six to score the runs."

New Zealand have at No. 6, a left-arm swing bowler who has just converted to an allrounder. In Hamilton James Franklin got a rough decision while scoring 0 and 14 and went wicketless. But Vettori doesn't want to drop like a hot brick the man who was the specialist No. 6 a week ago. "He has been selected as a No. 6, and has had only one opportunity at it," Vettori said. "He has been highly successful for Wellington. It would be unfair to just take that away from him after just one performance."

Franklin provides the balance with his steady medium-pace, but New Zealand essentially have three medium-pacers who can be decent foils to a yet-to-be found aggressive wicket-taker at the other end. In the absence of such firepower in the bowling department a solid batting performance becomes all the more important. New Zealand just haven't built enough pressure on the Indian batsmen - neither with runs on the board nor with their bowling.

Vettori, the captain and now the allrounder, has too much on his plate. As a captain he has won New Zealand just one Test with the ball - against Bangladesh. The lack of quality bowlers around him shows. In Hamilton he came in to bowl at 99 for 1, as compared to Harbhajan Singh who started his spell at 80 for 6. The difference in what happened was not mutually exclusive. It's not an easy state for the New Zealand team to be in, but what is easy is identifying the areas they have gone wrong in - almost all. They have shown faith in the same personnel, the same methodology, but want different execution. Along with them, the public wants different results.