India have often been accused of making slow starts to overseas tours, but no one can make that accusation this time - their first 11 balls in New Zealand went for 25 runs. Unfortunately for India, they got too greedy - the short boundaries at the AMI Stadium in Christchurch offered a temptation few of their batsmen could resist. Three incidents in the match summed up the teams' approach. Sehwag had smashed the first three balls he faced in New Zealand for sixes - he hit four in all during his 10-ball stay - but went for one hit too many. Rohit went for his second six in a row but got a leading edge off Ian Butler. Then, when Yusuf went for his fourth successive six off Nathan McCullum, Jacob Oram came up with a spectacular, making the entire process of flicking up the ball, crossing the boundary, coming back in and then taking the catch look extraordinarily easy. India were 32 in 3.1 overs, 54 in 5.2, and 82 in 9.4 at those junctures.
Dhoni was not pleased with the way the target was assessed tonight but said it wasn't a premeditated ploy to put New Zealand under pressure right away. "One of the key things was to go into the middle with a blank mind, without a target," Dhoni said. "We wanted to play according to the merit of the ball, it was not a conscious effort to go after the bowlers and hit those big sixes."
