DUNEDIN - If the Indian cricketers dish up anything like the spectacle they turned on at practice here yesterday, New Zealand fans, not to mention the people who repair those plastic grandstand seats, are in for a bumper season.
Those working in the offices beneath Carisbrook might have wondered whether they were under aerial attack as first Sachin Tendulkar and then Navjot Sidhu peppered the upper tiers with a breathless display of big-hitting during a light pre-test practice.
Even the more restrained Rahul Dravid joined the act, hoisting one ball high into the Rose Stand, before lofting another over the top of the sightscreen at the Railway end of the ground.
Coach Anshuman Gaekwad said his players were merely expressing their satisfaction at the condition of the practice surface. "They really liked the wicket; they liked the feel of it and suddenly felt good about themselves. The rest you saw."
In fact, there was no looking away. Sidhu was apparently undergoing a fitness-test after damaging a toe in Wellington, but the only fitness concerns now involve the superstructure of the new Carisbrook grandstand.