The cricket played in the Coca-Cola tri-nation tournament so far has been quite engrossing, but rather subdued. The spongy nature of wickets has strangled free-flowing stroke play, and though there have been few good knocks, it has been a bowlers' tournament. Considering that teams have struggled to get past 200, only something exceptional would have made a score beyond 250 possible. For sheer pluck and purpose and its value to the side, Nathan Astle's 108 in New Zealand's 264 was a gem. Stephen Fleming and Lou Vincent played crucial parts too, but it was Astle who held centre-stage, first playing the role of the anchor and then the propeller.

Astle is a quiet man and one of the underrated players on the international circuit. He has a batting average of over 35 and a bowling average fractionally above that. He has a particular liking for the Indians, averaging nearly 45 against them with three centuries, including his very first. That 114 was a swashbuckling effort at Nagpur in a mammoth team score of 348, and he repeatedly danced down the wicket to medium-pacers, square-driving ferociously. In fact, this is a shot that has got Astle plenty of one-day runs on true pitches.

But these Sri Lankan pitches have been anything but true and that makes Astle's effort all the more special. He has had to curb his natural impetuosity, summon great powers of concentration and construct his innings with skill. In a tournament in which no batsman has scored a hundred, Astle has scored two.

Astle is predominantly an off-side player and scores most of his runs square of the wicket. The wagon wheel of his first fifty today told a story: 70 per cent of his initial runs were scored on the on-side. The slowness of the surface demanded that the batsman play the waiting game and score through deft nudges and tickles and Astle had adapted magnificently.

His captain was the ideal foil. Fleming came into this match with a poor run of scores, and played himself in quietly before hitting some sweetly timed boundaries. Vincent, provided the ideal finish with a late flourish to ensure that India will have post the highest total in the tournament to reach the final.

Someone will have to better Astle to take India through.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd