The Great Game Called Cricket...

Years from now, when people think of Yusuf Pathan's maiden one-day century, they are unlikely to remember much more than the sheer brutality of it all. Yet, there was so much more to the innings than the clinical straight-hitting, which admittedly was in a league of its own. A batsman's response when his weaknesses are targeted can say a lot about his state of mind. While Yusuf dismantled New Zealand when they served him freebies in his hitting areas, the clarity he showed when tested with the short ball was even more telling.

Dead rubber or not, there was lot riding on this for Yusuf when he came out to join Rohit Sharma in what was panning into a veritable shoot-out between the two to stay in the hunt for a full-time middle-order opening. India required 208 off 183 when Yusuf took guard - not the situation cut out for a batsman termed a fifth-gear slogger who cannot handle the bouncer.

It is a reputation that has tagged Yusuf for long now. After losing favour following the tri-series in Zimbabwe, he returned to domestic cricket and did what came naturally to him - he flayed India's local attacks in all formats. The manner in which he scored his runs - 195 off 138 balls in a Ranji game, 89 off 42 to lift a derailed Twenty20 chase, and a 63 off 30 in the Challenger Trophy - did not help his cause as much as reinforce the tag of flat-track bully. Had he been plonking his front foot forward and tucking into over-pitched deliveries, or had he found a way past the short stuff? He got his chance to address that question today.

It helped Yusuf that he checked in against spin, before facing the trial by bounce. Daniel Vettori tried trapping him with arm-balls, getting the odd delivery to skid in with the late-evening dew. Nathan McCullum was flighting his offbreaks, asking to be lofted over a vacant long-on. With India still well off the greens, Yusuf resisted the bait. He began with measured dabs on either side of the wicket, picking Vettori's variations from the pitch and reaching out to deal with McCullum. By the 25th over, he had moved to a quiet 8 off 13 balls, before Vettori brought back the seamers.

Andy McKay, New Zealand's fastest bowler, came on and square-leg was pushed back to the boundary. McKay's third ball to Yusuf was a slow bouncer, which he spotted early but chose to let go. Two balls later it came again. McKay's left-arm, around-the-wicket angle, at around 140 kph, makes the bouncer a tough delivery for any right-hand batsman. Six months ago, Yusuf would have pressed forward, looking for the driving length, before arresting his momentum and getting into a tangled attempt at a pull without transferring the weight back. No such confusion this time: he stayed put on a more balanced and crouched stance at the crease, and ducked under it with intent.

McKay tried it again in the 30th over, and having warmed up to the chase by now with a flat six off Vettori, Yusuf took the challenge. He was however beaten by the pace and failed to make contact with the pull. Yusuf's reaction gave nothing away - no self-admonishing, no air-practice to perfect the shot - he just stood his ground and looked down the track as McKay's follow-through ended closer to the batting crease than normal. The next ball was pitched up, the surprise delivery to catch the batsman waiting on the backfoot for another bumper, but Yusuf knew the two-card trick was being played, and lofted it cleanly over mid-off.

Rohit departed, the rains came down and broke play for an hour with India needing 113 from 14 overs. While Saurabh Tiwary fidgeted around with nervous energy, one could sense calmness in the way Yusuf faced up to a few throwdowns before play resumed.

Vettori's first ball on resumption was launched over long-on, bringing up Yusuf's half-century. In the 39th over, he asked for the batting Powerplay, and flexed his muscles by depositing the fifth ball of Kyle Mills' over, over the roof behind wide long-on. Tim Southee tested him with fuller lengths and three quiet overs ensued, as Yusuf played out incisive yorker after yorker without panicking. In the 43rd over, he made up for lost time, swinging Mills' shoddy lengths for 21 runs through the leg-side. India moved ahead of the D/L par-score, and from there it was a canter to victory, despite Tiwary's scratchiness at the other end.

Fittingly enough, the century came off a McKay bouncer that was dispatched over wide long-on. It angled in sharply from wide of off stump, and Yusuf moved back and across, without lunging forward as he once used to. The crack of the ball pinging the meat of the swinging blade gave way to warm applause from a crowd that had earned its treat for having waited through the rains. Yusuf threw his arms up and soaked in the moment. It is a shot that will be replayed several times in India in days to come. It is the shot of a man who had stared his biggest challenge in the face and found a way to deal with it.

They said he couldn't perform in international cricket. They said he was good only for IPL and domestic cricket. He proved them wrong tonight. Yusuf Pathan engineered an improbable win for India with a violent hundred, his first in ODIs, and perhaps sealed a World Cup berth for himself. It looked grim for India when they were tottering at 188 for 5 in the 34th over, after the fall of Rohit Sharma, but Pathan pulled off a heist. One game doesn't guarantee a successful future of course, especially considering that this New Zealand attack wasn't potent enough to test his weakness against short balls, but Pathan left his past behind with a potentially career-changing innings on a drizzly Bangalore night. His century overshadowed a superbly-crafted 98 from James Franklin that had allowed New Zealand to reach a daunting total.

Pathan declared his intent with two brutal shots. The first came in the 37th over, when play resumed after a one-hour rain break that didn't reduce any overs and left India needing 113 runs from 14. Yusuf launched a Daniel Vettori delivery into screaming fans beyond long-on and clubbed a length delivery from Kyle Mills over the roof at cow corner. A couple of quiet overs followed but Pathan roused himself in a violent 43rd over: he smashed Mills for three fours - a lofted hit overs cover and two flicks past short fine-leg - before crashing a length delivery for six over midwicket. And when he brought up his maiden hundred with a pulled six, off Andy McKay in the next over, the game was all but over. He found support in Saurabh Tiwary, who intelligently rotated the strike, and the pair gave India a 4-0 lead in the series.

It was an incredible effort considering India had lagged behind for a major part of the chase. McKay's twin strikes to remove Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli in the 10th over and Nathan McCullum's double-strike to dismiss Yuvraj Singh and Parthiv Patel, who hit his maiden fifty, had pushed India on the back foot. And when Tim Southee had Rohit Sharma hitting straight to mid-off, New Zealand would have been thinking about the win, but Yusuf crushed their hopes with a blinder.

As good as their batting was in the end overs, their death bowling nearly lost India the game. Franklin's knock provided the perfect climax to New Zealand's spirited approach; the openers attacked to take them to 91 for 2 in the 14th over and the middle-order adapted to the fall of wickets - rebuilding at a slower pace before Franklin's final flourish.

Franklin looted 22 runs in the final over, bowled by Nehra, with some wickedly entertaining big hits: he smashed the second delivery to the straight boundary, the third over long-off, the fourth to midwicket, and the fifth to the wide long-off boundary. It was not, however, a knock of such fury and adrenalin from the start. He had built his innings with conventional shots, such as the one in 47th over, when he was batting with the tail and was under some pressure. He sashayed down the track to Yusuf Pathan, who had just picked up two wickets, and nonchalantly flicked him wide of the deep midwicket fielder. No manic rush or desperation, he simply carried on with his style, sweeping the spinners and flicking and square-driving the seamers to get to his fifty. Only in the final two overs did he explode. It seemed he had done enough to win the game for his team, especially after India's top-order had collapsed, but Yusuf seized the day.

Gautam Gambhir has said being captain for India's ODI series against New Zealand has not given him any extra motivation to perform with the bat. "As a player or a captain I have always given 100%. Captaincy has not changed my batting," he said. "I am striking the ball well and would have batted like this under any captain."

Gambhir scored his second successive unbeaten century, in the third ODI in Vadodara on Saturday, to give India an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.

In Saturday's match, India's bowlers restricted New Zealand to 224 in their 50 overs after putting them in to bat. Gambhir admitted it was an advantage bowling first on the Vadodara wicket but praised his bowlers for setting up the win. "When there is dew in Baroda it does a bit in the morning; it's red soil. It was a good toss to win but it was a great effort from our bowlers to restrict them to 225-odd.

"[Zaheer Khan] is the best left-arm fast bowler in the world now. [R] Ashwin has a lot of variety and can bowl well during Powerplays and the slog overs. If he keeps doing that he will be a big asset to the team. Munaf [Patel] bowled great at first-change. It's tough to get figures of 1 for 28 in 10 overs on a subcontinent wicket. Yusuf [Pathan] contributed with the ball, as well."

Gambhir kept a slip in almost throughout the New Zealand innings and said the aggressive tactics were prompted by New Zealand's depth in batting. "There was still a bit of dampness out there and we wanted to take wickets as New Zealand bat deep down with Kyle Mills coming in at No.10."

With Ravindra Jadeja in the side for the third ODI, Yuvraj Singh was not called upon to bowl any overs, despite having taken three wickets in the first game in Guwahati. It is still uncertain whether India will play seven batsmen or an allrounder in the 2011 World Cup, and Yuvraj's bowling could be a deciding factor in the balance of the team. Gambhir said Yuvraj was still an important part of the ODI setup. "Yuvi is an experienced player and an integral part of the side. He has been a great help to me as captain."

With several senior players rested, the series against New Zealand is an opportunity for the India selectors to look at some of the fringe players ahead of the World Cup, and Gambhir welcomed the competition. "It's good to have competitions for various places. If the selectors have a headache in this aspect, it's a very good sign for Indian cricket," he said. He, however, hinted India may not experiment too much with the side for the last two ODIs despite the series being won. "We should try and put our best team on the park as it is an international game and we are playing a quality side."

New Zealand's one-day woes continued into a ninth straight game as their batting failed to cope with moist early-morning conditions in Vadodara. Zaheer Khan, coming back after injury, and Munaf Patel swung and seamed the ball all right, but New Zealand will look back at how unremarkable their response was. With the pitch easing out in the afternoon, Gautam Gambhir made the chase look ridiculously easy, becoming only the eighth captain to score centuries in back-to-back ODIs.

From the time he won the toss and put New Zealand in, Gambhir hardly put a foot wrong, keeping his perfect captaincy record and India's unbeaten home season intact. New Zealand's openers gifted their wickets, the middle order went into a shell, and even though James Franklin and Nathan McCullum added 94 for the eighth wicket, it was never going to be enough. Not with Gambhir making room and peppering the off side with drives and cuts, bringing up his fifty in 30 balls, out of India's 64 then.

Watching Gambhir bat, the struggle New Zealand went through early in the morning seemed far away. Brendon McCullum, making a comeback himself, laid out a welcome mat for Zaheer, guiding a widish delivery straight to second slip. Martin Guptill ran himself out soon after.

Between those dismissals, Williamson set the template for the day. His front foot went across to the first ball he faced. It swung in enough down the leg side to be called a wide, but Williamson had fallen over trying to correct the movement. Neither Williamson nor Ross Taylor could get rid of that tendency during their short stays. Taylor's wicket, though, came in a tame fashion as he tried drive Zaheer on the up. The shot was played away from his body, and an inside edge ensued.

Taylor's No. 4 position has been a matter of debate, with arguments that he should take more responsibility and bat at No. 3. Williamson's inability to counterattack only seemed to highlight that notion. For the third game running, he got off to a slow start, and did little to hit Munaf off his plan.

Munaf loves to bowl back of a length, just outside off, and wobble the ball slightly either way. He tends to get a bit rattled when somebody uses that predictability to come down and hit him. In this series, though, no one has come close to doing that. And once Williamson allowed Munaf to do what he wanted, that lbw call seemed a matter of time with the batsman regularly falling over.

Modern captains tend to go into the containment mode once the 15th over ends irrespective of how many wickets they might have got. Gambhir, who had put New Zealand in, was refreshingly old-school. When he saw R Ashwin turn the first ball, he set Test-match fields for Scott Styris and James Franklin. Yuvraj, at leg slip, soon came into action taking a sharp low catch to send Styris back. Daniel Vettori did a B McCullum, guiding Yusuf Pathan straight to slip for another sharp catch for Yuvraj, who later returned to leg slip to get rid of Gareth Hopkins too.

Having fallen behind the over-rate, though, Gambhir omitted to use four of Zaheer and Nehra's overs. Facing part-time spinners on a pitch that had eased out a bit, Franklin and N McCullum had little trouble building a partnership. It was almost as if Gambhir was not concerned at all by their stand.

The way he turned out with the bat, Gambhir need not have worried either.

After having been at the wrong end of Gambhir's off-side play in Jaipur, New Zealand tried to cramp him up, and found that Gambhir was equally adept at scoring through the on side. He flicked the second ball he faced fine for a boundary. In Kyle Mills' next over, he picked the gap between mid-on and midwicket. In Mills' next, Gambhir started making room and went into his favourite off side. He capitalised on the correction on the next delivery, moving to 23 off 11.

Andy McKay got the same treatment: wide ball, four; too straight, four; wide again, four. With time, Gambhir's favourite chips over extra cover and midwicket came out too. He might have seemed to slow down after reaching his fifty, but he took only 58 further deliveries to get to the hundred.

M Vijay didn't struggle like he did in Jaipur, but had to stay content with being the lesser partner in the opening stand. And like he did in Japiur, Virat Kohli came out and scored a half-century in the company of his captain as India cantered home.