Oh seaming pitch, where art thou? It has been painful to watch batsmen v batsmen v rain so far. The first three one-dayers have been like matches in India, the only difference being the greener and smaller grounds. Why bother making a two-day journey across the world for the same brand of cricket, the Indians must be thinking.
If you had stopped following cricket after India's 2002-03 tour of New Zealand, you would need to pinch yourself to make sure these matches are being played in the same country. The younger batsmen in the Indian squad must be thinking what the fuss about difficult pitches, cold weather and low totals was about. But the pitches in New Zealand have changed, a prime example being Australia's failure to defend 340 twice two years ago.
Going into the fourth match in Hamilton, the talk has been about what is a defendable total. Going by the evidence from Christchurch, it's not 340. New Zealand's bowlers have talked about mysterious plans that they haven't been able to execute against India's batsmen. In the only innings that was uninterrupted by rain, the bowlers didn't seem to have any.
If Brendon McCullum is to be believed Seddon Park, the venue for Wednesday's match, should present the bowlers with a similar test. The boundaries are not as absurdly short as those at Christchurch's AMI Stadium but they are still not big enough to give batsmen headaches.
