The Kiwis fire, at last!

We knew that it was due. Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor are too good to be kept silent for long. We saw a spark in McCullum's last match against Delhi when he hit Ashish Nehra for a six in his first over. But to add to the long list of Kolkatta's woes he was wrongly adjudged lbw in the very next ball. McCullum proved what a force he can be in his next match against Bangalore.

He began the innings slowly, scoring at a run a ball. But he shifted to top gear in the sixteenth over pulling and cutting and scooping the balls to and over the boundaries. He finished with an unbeaten 84 off 64 with 12 hits to the boundary and two of them over it. The batting effort rubbed on his fielding too. He took a spectacular catch in his left hand, driving full stretch to dismiss a set Kallis. The McCullum who dropped sitters was already forgotten. The McCullum we knew was back.

But another Kiwi spoiled his party. What would have been a wonderful day for the Knight Riders and their captain turned out sour when Ross Taylor decided that he hadn't contributed enough for his team's cause. 81 off 33 balls is an excellent strike rate even on the best batting grounds in the world. When India's fastest bowler, Ishant Sharma, gets hit to all parts of the ground and concedes 20 in an over, we know that Ross means business. His quick hands provided apt replies to the bowlers 145k short-of-a-length deliveries. Bangalore needed 40 off the last three overs. When Ross had done with a hapless Ishant and a hopeless Agarkar, they needed just five of the last over. In the second ball of the last over, Taylor deposited Angelo Mathews over the fence to earn a well fought win against some ordinary bowling.

Taylor is my favorite batsman after the Mumbai Maestro and Jayawardena. These batsmen rely more on timing and placement than or power hitting and that is what I love about them. Taylor is the youngest of the lot and might be the best batsmen of the world after the other two retire. I believe that we have not yet seen the best of this Kiwi. Many more bigger and better innings are right around the corner