Cricket: Fletcher gets taste of task ahead

Duncan Fletcher. Photo / Getty Images

Sitting in the shade of the grandstand, Duncan Fletcher sat and watched the latest slapping administered to New Zealand by India.

The former England coach, who oversaw the Ashes victory of 2005, breaking an 18-year drought, has been hired to assist the beleaguered New Zealanders find some answers to what is now a nine-game losing streak.

Behind his impenetrable black sunglasses, you wonder what on earth he would have made of what unfolded at Vadodara on Saturday.

New Zealand have equalled their second worst ODI run of nine straight defeats, the same number put up between March 1985 and January 1986.

The worst one was a 13-loss horror from April 1994 to January 1995.

New Zealand barely made India work for this win. It was not remotely close, and remember this is a second-string Indian side.

Sent in, the visitors managed 224 for nine, and only got that far courtesy of an unbeaten 72 from James Franklin and a 94-run stand with Nathan McCullum for the eighth wicket.

The pitch may have been testing early on, but it was not 106 for seven difficult. The batting was dreadfully lame; shot selection thoughtless. You might have read this somewhere before recently.

Gautam Gambhir then ripped New Zealand's woeful bowling apart, hitting his second consecutive ODI century, 126 not out off 117 balls. Virat Kohli belted an unbeaten 63 off 70 balls and it was all over with 10.3 overs unbowled.

As India's batsmen feasted on an assortment of rubbish, their former allrounder sitting in the commentary box, Ravi Shastri, offered a damning indictment: "You get the feeling you might need to give New Zealand a handicap to compete."

Right now, on the evidence of the last three games, you can make a decent argument for that. Two ODIs in this series remain; the confidence within the players looks shot.

Take the batting. Brendon McCullum, back after missing the first two ODIs to rest his back, but not keeping wicket, steered his first legitimate delivery from Zaheer Khan to second slip as if giving catching practice.

Martin Guptill ran himself out, having taken 10 runs already in the over; Kane Williamson crawled unconvincingly to 21 off 50 balls; Ross Taylor, the best batsman, expired softly yet again; while two other batsmen, unbelievably, were caught at leg slip off a spinner midway through the innings.

Franklin, twiddling his thumbs since arriving in India as a replacement for Hamish Bennett between the first and second tests, prospered by sweeping adroitly and swinging lustily. His batting was the one positive thing to come out of a wretched day.

With McCullum, they at least gave something for New Zealand's bowlers to work with. At least they did if the bowlers had been even half decent.

Instead Kyle Mills, Andy McKay and Franklin were all over the place and Gambhir simply mowed them down.

Short and wide balls were followed by deliveries drifting into the batsman's legs.

If there's one thing New Zealand should have known long ago is anything on an Indian batsman's middle and leg stumps in Indian conditions is going to go a long way.

Five boundaries came in one 11-ball burst. McKay was dispatched for three successive fours and Vettori was on for the ninth over.

Offspinner McCullum marked out his runup for the 12th over, the fifth bowler tried. That's how bad things were.

Next up it's Bangalore tomorrow night. Things could get really ugly before New Zealand's underperformers board the plane home next weekend.

Roll of disaster

* Lost by 3 wkts, Sri Lanka, Aug 13
* Lost by 105 runs, India, Aug 25
* Lost by 9 runs, Bangladesh, Oct 5
* Lost by 7 wkts, Bangladesh, Oct 11
* Lost by 9 runs, Bangladesh, Oct 14
* Lost by 3 runs, Bangladesh, Oct 17
* Lost by 40 runs, India, Nov 28
* Lost by 8 wkts, India, Dec 1
* Lost by 9 wkts, India, Dec 4

* One no result, one abandoned game included in 11-game block