T3 Days 3&4: Hopes Floats For NZ…But Target Drifting Away

The only thing perhaps motivating the New Zealand dressing room at the moment has to be Ross Taylor’s presence at the crease. While miracles will be tough chasing a target like 617 runs, New Zealand will continue to hope for one as long as Taylor is at the crease.
It is hard to imagine a team going gung ho about the possibility of chasing such a humungous total in the face of nearly two days of cricket and batting still left. While saving the Test would be the ideal scenario, it is apparent that New Zealand will also want to keep the scorebard ticking so as not to get bogged down by the proposition of getting into a defensive mode that prevents them even the possibility of a draw.
For New Zealand to come anywhere close to matching India’s efforts, they will need a consolidated effort that saw Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni score valuable half centuries with Yuvraj Singh throwing in the valuable cameo. But what they really need is a couple of telling big knocks such as the one Gautam Gambhir has provided in the second innings for his 167.
But New Zealand appeared to have found resistance in Martin Guptill and defiance in Ross Taylor until Harbhajan Singh undid the efforts of Guptill on forty-nine and sent Jesse Ryder, who has been a thorn in the flesh for India, packing for naught. Zaheer Khan had already weakened New Zealand’s strengths with the wickets of Tim McIntosh and Daniel Flynn. It has meant that New Zealand have finished day four at the Basin Reserve in Wellington on 167 for four. Their hopes now rest on the eighty-three run partnership between James Franklin and Taylor to push for a draw, if not an outrageous win.
The momentum clearly rests with India. This is their golden opportunity to win the Test series in New Zealand and lay past history to rest.