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M.S.Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat in the first Test match of the three-match Test series at the Sardar Patel stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad, on Thursday. Dhoni was lucky on the Tenth occassion, having lost the toss nine times consecutively. Though India lost Gautam Gambhir early, Virender Sehwag slammed a quickfire century against New Zealand.

Virendra Sehwag

Sehwag batted agressively during the day and after luch  session he reached his 22nd Test century. Sehwag slammed 24 fours and a six for his 173 runs.

Sehwag scored an unbeaten 87 runs to dominate the first session and help India reach 127 for one at lunch on the first day of the first Test against New Zealand. Rahul Dravid  was the other not out batsman at the lunch break.

Sehwag and Dravid put on a 273 runs stand for the second wicket which has put India on a comfortable platform in this match.

The first session belonged to Sehwag who entertained the fans with splendid shots all around the Stadium.

Sehwag  seemed to be struggling with his fitness; he rarely zipped through between the wickets, preferring to jog whenever possible and asked for a runner after tea.

Rahul Dravid also compiled his century with ease but misjudged an out-going ball and edged in on to the stumps.

Sehwag was bowled by Vettori while attempting a lazy inside-out drive, but Dravid reached his 30th Test hundred soon after, moving past Don Bradman in the list of highest century-makers.

New Zealand were given an early glimpse of the difficult task ahead of them in India as the home team moved into a commanding position on the first day in Ahmedabad.
Gautam Gambhir was the first wicket to fall when he inside edged an incoming delivery from Chris Martin back on to his stumps to be bowled for 21 runs.

Part-timer Jesse Ryder, though, got the final delivery of that over to move in a touch and had Gautam Gambhir inside-edging onto the stumps. It ended an innings where Gambhir had struggled for fluency as he searched for his form of 2009.

VVS Laxman and Gautam Gambhir, who were not the part of India’s last Test due to injuries, returned into the final eleven replacing Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara.

S Sreesanth was also included in the playing eleven ahead of Ishant Sharma, who also missed the last Test due to injury.

New Zealand had included youngsters Kane Williamson and Hamish Bennett for the match.

Fans are just waiting for Sachin Tendulkar  to complete 50 hundreds in Test cricket and he needs just one more. They are hoping that this Dewali, Sachin may create this record also.

New Zealand’s bowling was average with the spinners not extracting much turn and the quick bowlers, Chris Martin and Bennett, rarely beating the bat on the slow track.

Ravi Matah.

Tags: India New Zealand Test Series, Sardar Patel Stadium Ahmedabad, Virendra Sehwag

This entry was posted on Friday, November 5th, 2010 at 8:22 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.