'Nature of New Zealand pitches has changed over the years' - Sachin Tendulkar ahead of NZ-IND series

Indian cricket team under the tutelage of Virat Kohli came through with flying colours after beating the highly-rated Australian side by 2-1 at home. Aaron Finch-led team have been steamrolled in three days as they lost back-to-back matches after winning the opening ODI in Mumbai. It is a kind of beating that can give Australia sleepless nights. It is a kind of series defeat that can leave the team confidence in torn pieces.

It is hard not to have sympathy for the Aussies but cricket doesn’t allow any sympathy and this ruthless Virat Kohli-led team doesn’t allow it too. With copious zest and zeal, India jetted off to New Zealand for a full-fledged tour as they will play five T20 Internationals, three ODIs and two Tests.

Meanwhile, New Zealand are well aware of their home conditions and will be looking forward to putting a tough fight and challenge the top Indian side that looks clearly unstoppable at the moment. India’s heartbreaking defeat came against New Zealand in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. After a painful defeat, there is no looking back since then.

They dominated the sport across all formats of the game. India possess a terrible record in New Zealand and it would be quite interesting to see how India approach the tour under Virat Kohli’s captaincy. The tour sparks with the truncated version of the game with the first match scheduled to be played at Eden Park in Auckland on January 24.

‘Pitches in New Zealand have become batting-friendly’: Sachin Tendulkar

Former batting great Sachin Tendulkar said that the character of the pitches in New Zealand have changed over the years. With the pitches have become a lot more batting-friendly, there are possibilities of India upsetting the hosts in the upcoming series.

The master blaster Sachin Tendulkar, who has been on a record five New Zealand tours since the year 1990, feels that from seaming tracks during his early overseas trip years, the tracks became high-scoring hard ones during his last tour back in the year 2009. “Of late, the Tests in New Zealand have been high scoring and surfaces have changed,” said Tendulkar as quoted by Sportstar.

Sachin Tendulkar also remembers the fond memories in New Zealand.“I remember when we played in 2009, the Hamilton pitch was different compared to other pitches. Other pitches got harder (Wellington and Napier) but not Hamilton. It remained soft.

“But Napier became hard with the passage of time (where Gautam Gambhir scored an epic match-saving 12-hour hundred in 2009). So, from my first tour (in 1990 till 2009), I realised pitches got harder with the passage of time,” Tendulkar said.

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