Sunday, December 22, 2002 After nearly two days were rained out, I certainly didn't expect to be driving back home to Auckland with the match ending on the fourth afternoon.

It was one of the most bizarre and fascinating Tests that I have witnessed, with both teams being in a position to win at lunch on the fourth day. This pulsating game ebbed and flowed all the way through – until New Zealand finally made it home thanks to Jacob Oram, a soccer goal-keeper in his earlier years, and a player for the future.

India didn't organize their bowling plan at the start of the day. Harbhajan Singh should have been brought on to bowl much earlier, particularly after Tinu Yohannan got rid of Lou Vincent. He should have been bowling at the two left-hand batsmen Stephen Fleming and Mark Richardson.

In contrast, Yohannan allowed both batsmen to settle down by not making them play enough. His style of delivery, from wide of the stumps, makes it difficult for him to be accurate.

It happened again with Craig McMillan. With his recent poor form, McMillan should have been made to feel the pressure, particularly after Richardson got out to a cracking delivery from Ashish Nehra.

When Harbhajan did bowl 90 minutes after play started, it was too late. He seemed out of sorts. In fact, it was one of his poorest spells that I have seen him bowl for a long time. He couldn't get it right even after lunch.

Sourav Ganguly's mistake of not bringing Harbhajan early was another indicator of him not seeming to mentally get into this Test series at all. He had no luck with the toss, didn't bat well and missed out on strategy. Stephen Fleming outclassed him in the captaincy department. Fleming made better use of his bowling resources than Ganguly did.

A couple of factors could have affected Ganguly's captaincy. Maybe he was psychologically on the backfoot right from the moment he arrived at Wellington, for the first Test, saw the weather, the pitch and lost the toss. His batsmen were not tough enough, they didn't adjust and certainly they could have batted a lot better despite the adverse conditions. With his poor batting form too, he just didn't get into first gear.

A lot of his focus could have also been on the World Cup around the corner. India came out of a long seven-match one-day series against West Indies, and are now heading into another seven-match series against New Zealand. Sometimes, in such a situation, subconsciously you are not thinking positively or properly of what's going to happen now in a Test match.

I experienced a similar predicament in 1992, when I was captain. We lost a Test series 0-2 against England, prior to the World Cup in Australia that year. I kept thinking of what I had to do to win the World Cup instead of focusing on the present situation.

Ganguly is a completely different person, as a player and as a captain, when he gets into coloured clothing. In the one-day format, he has one of the most outstanding batting records in the world, and he often misses that advantage of leading by example as a Test match captain. His Test batting average is starting to slip down, and if seven Indian batsmen are fighting for six places in the side, it means Ganguly has to knuckle down.

It will be correct to say this Test series will have helped India's one-day cause. I think that they will be a different side with the white ball on Boxing Day, when the first one-day match starts at Auckland.

Until then, I will enjoy the good memories I carry from this Test series, particularly this very interesting and bizarre last Test that helped New Zealand retain their No.3 ranking in the world. They bowled better than India in the series, and the 2-0 result reflects that difference.

Martin Crowe is a former captain of New Zealand and one of the most technically accomplished batsmen of his time. From 1981 to 1994, he played 77 Tests and made 5444 Test runs with 17 hundreds. He will continue giving his expert view for India's seven one-day matches in New Zealand. He was talking to Raja M.

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