Gambhir over the moon as he leads http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 to Jaipur win
Stand-in Indian captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 in the second ODI of the five match series played at Jaipur.
The left-handed opening batsman, who is captaining the side in place of Mahindra Singh Dhoni who has taken rest from the series, struck a brilliant unbeaten 138 to guide the hosts to a win.
This was his first ton against New Zealand and the eighth of his ODI career which has flourished in recent times making him one of the best opening batsmen in the game.
After the win Gambhir praised his entire unit for an overwhelming performance which started by restricting the tourists to a below par 258 runs total in the day and night game. He praised opening bowler Shiv Sreesanth who claimed 4 wickets
in the New Zealand innings to put his hand up for World Cup selection.
"I always felt the wicket was going to improve. I was looking to time the ball and it worked. They batted well and 259 was a decent total, but our bowlers did a good job to contain them.”
"Sreesanth has got his Test rhythm in ODI cricket as well, and he's had two really good games this series."
On the other hand, there were some concerns over the form of the seasoned left armer http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ashish-Nehra-c46293 who had an ordinary game where he finished without a wicket and conceded 45 runs from his 9 overs.
Gambhir jumped to his defence by saying that every bowler has an off day and that Nehra was an experienced campaigner who just lost his rhythm which cost him dearly in the match.
The modest http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Delhi-c780 batsman was pleased with his own form, saying scoring a hundred as a captain was special yet he felt that more important for him was the performance of the team that led to a convincing win in what could have been a potentially
tricky chase, especially if they would have lost early wickets.
He added that he enjoyed his stay in the middle as the ball was coming onto the bat nicely and the track was not spinning as expected.
Meanwhile his opposing number Daniel Vettori rated Gambhir’s innings as a truly special one hailing it as “One of the best one-day innings I have seen," he added "We should have bowled better, we gave width to Gambhir all day and he made
us pay for that. If you do that on slowish wickets, it's difficult to control the run-rate."
The Black Caps have lost seven consecutive ODI games and their form is a real worry ahead of the ODI World Cup next year.
The tournament is set to be played in the Indian sub-continent from February next year and the pivotal thing for him and his team is to put an end to the losing sequence as soon as possible.
They have an immediate chance of redemption when they take on the Indians in the third ODI of the five match series at http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Baroda-c769.
The Kiwis have to ensure that their batsmen fire and post a competitive total for a largely inexperienced bowling attack that has struggled in Indian conditions.
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