The impact of Gambhir's new stance

Kane Williamson followed the ball for the first few overs. Wherever the ball went, fielders followed. Gautam Gambhir hit one square cut for four and that was enough for Matt Henry to place a fielder manning the point boundary. The ball that went to the fence was short and wide but, instead of altering the length, New Zealand placed a fielder for a bad ball. Trent Boult also employed an interesting new tactic for M Vijay - a couple of pleasing cover drives by the batsman led not just to the placement of a deep point but also to the bowler varying angles by changing between over and around the wicket a few times in his first three overs. This is the first time in the series that New Zealand have changed their plans so swiftly in a such a short time span.

Gambhir has changed his stance to prevent his front foot from going too far across, opening up his stance from the feet to the shoulders. This new stance has opened up the on side for him, both off the front foot and back foot. It has also allowed him to play the short ball well on both sides of the pitch. Gambhir's comfort against short balls was evident right from the start of his innings. The only flip side to such a stance, as highlighted by Gambhir's wagon-wheel, is that it limits the batsman from playing the full ball through covers and mid-off. Bafflingly, New Zealand's fast bowlers did not bowl full enough to Gambhir on a consistent basis.

In years gone by, it was considered preposterous not to have a fielder at deep square leg or deep midwicket. But, in today's era, tactics are driven by the available data. Cheteshwar Pujara neither sweeps, nor plays the slog sweep and, therefore, Jeetan Patel opted to leave that entire area in the deep unmanned. That not only allowed the bowler to cut off an easy single, but also challenged Pujara to go out of his comfort zone. Since Pujara often steps out to hit down the ground, the fielder at mid-on was pushed back.

On the fourth ball of the 46th over, Mitchell Santner dropped short and Virat Kohli went back to half-flick, half-punch the ball to the midwicket fence. When a spinner drops short, a batsman's natural tendency is to go deep inside the crease and play a horizontal-bat shot through midwicket. Instead, Kohli played the shot with a straight bat, which is the right way to play spin off the back foot on subcontinental pitches. Other batsmen would do well to take a cue from this shot for the rest of the game.

Kohli's handling of the short ball has been impeccable thus far. Ever since he got out to Neil Wagner in Kanpur, there has been a concerted effort from New Zealand to bowl a few bouncers to Kohli early on. Today, he looked in complete control, both when ducking under the ball and when playing the pull shot. It is not easy to leave a few bouncers and then pounce on one that's hittable. As a result, New Zealand's seamers did not overdo the bouncer trap against Kohli.

By contrast, it took some time for Ajinkya Rahane to find a workable strategy against the bouncers. He tried both pulling and riding the bounce in the initial stages of his innings but found himself in trouble on both occasions. Only when he decided to abandon all attempts to play the bouncer did his life become easier. He took a couple of blows on the body and looked more assured once his mind was uncluttered.