I have always had fond memories of New Zealand, and enjoyed playing against them on their home soil. In fact, I made my first-class debut against them at Delhi in 1955 and played them again at home in 1964-65. But the 1969 series was our first against them away and after my dismal performance against Australia, I was in a positive frame of mind. Prior to the New Zealand series, which was to be my farewell one, I went through the worst patch of my career. After I got out to a bad shot in the final Test at Sydney, which we could have saved, I told our skipper Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, "I am sorry I did not do justice to the side and didn't deliver the goods. But I will see to it that I transform myself for the New Zealand series. You will see a completely changed man there." And he said, "it's ok".

Surprisingly, though all the wickets were slow turners, New Zealand didn't play their spinners. Even today, they rely on four or five seamers as they did in our time. The ball moves off the seam there but it also turns, albeit slowly. One of the reasons behind New Zealand relying on pace could have been the perception that the Indians were poor at dealing with the short-pitched stuff. To a certain extent, that was the case on the much bouncier pitches in Australia.

Dunedin and Christchurch, the venues for the opening two Tests, were seamer-friendly tracks. The bowlers had to wait for the batsmen to commit errors and for the spinners, there was total reliance on length and line.

After losing the first Test, New Zealand went for the pace of Gary Bartlett. He was a blatant chucker, according to me, worse than even Charlie Griffith. The ploy worked very well as our batsmen had no answers to his menacing in-swinging deliveries. The ball used to skid off the pitch and the batsmen couldn't avoid that. After three days, the wicket softened up and we fought back but to no avail. Another important facet of that match was the innings of Graham Dowling, who scored a double century. He set the platform from which New Zealand could build towards a win and they did just that.

Surprisingly, Bartlett was dropped for the remainder of the series even though he had a major role in their only victory of the series. His action had met with a lot of attention and I suppose better sense prevailed in the New Zealand think-tank.

With the teams tied at one win apiece, the Wellington Test was always going to be a fine contest. Basin Reserve has a pitch that stays firm for the first two days and from thereon in, the spin bowlers take over. (Ajit) Wadekar's 143 on a green track was one of the best innings I've seen and it put India on a winning pedestal. I didn't bowl much in their first innings, as Erapalli Prasanna took five wickets.

However, I took six in the second innings to wrap up the match. I didn't need to come up with anything special, once I knew the ball was turning. Another important factor was New Zealand's fear of our spinners. This could be gauged from the fact that on the third day, with more than three-quarters-of-an hour of scheduled play remaining and the light very bright, they called for bad light. And that too when Prasanna and myself were bowling. They wanted to push the play to the next day as there was a possibility of rain. But the umpires did not accede to their demands and allowed us to carry on and wrap up the match. Afterwards, I jokingly asked their senior players what all the fuss about regarding the light. But they laughed it off.

I loved bowling on New Zealand wickets. They have this peculiar quality of assisting both seam bowlers and spinners. Also, all the New Zealand batsmen were great sweepers of the ball. Dowling and Bevan Congdon were major contributors with the bat, so it was a pleasure to get them out. One of the best wickets I took was Congdon, out trying to sweep, when the added turn surprised, and bowled, him. And fortunately for us, they didn't use their best spinner at that time. Brian Hue, who bowled left-arm, might have given us a lot of trouble on that turning Basin Reserve track.

The Auckland Test was my last for the country. I had made up my mind to retire when I was selected for Australia. The chief reason was the desire to go out on a good note. Although I was not among the wickets in the final Test, which we won, I topped the bowling averages, and did justice to my economy rate of 1.6.

Bapu Nadkarni was one of India's premier spinners in the 1960s. He was talking to Nagraj Gollapudi

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