I'd love to sit here and offer some insight intro trends from Aotearoa A's second four-day game against India A. That's difficult when the hosts absolutely smoked the kiwis once again with the major positive being that Aotearoa improved from being dismissed under 150 twice in game one, to scoring 211 and 210 in game two. Shout outz for the improvements, as for the bowlers? Well they only bowled once and while they did manage to take 10 wickets as India rolled to 447, eight different bowlers were used and India did roll to 447 with relative ease.

Improving to not only pass 150 twice, but pass the 200 mark was largely thanks to Jeet Raval's 48 and 47. He's a Test opener and should be performing strongly at this level, so it was lovely for Raval to make 20+ in all four of his innings. Colin Munro hit 65 and Tim Seifert 44* in the first dig, while Henry Nicholls finally did something and hit 94 after scores of 5, 1 and 0; Nicholls and Raval were the only batsmen to score 15+ in the second innings.

Ish Sodhi took 3/120 @ 4.80rpo, making him the pick of the bowlers. Sodhi again bowled the most overs with 25, while George Worker operated as the second spinner and chipped in with 17 overs without a wicket. Worker did however only concede 3.52rpo and this precisely why I'm keen to see Sodhi and Mitchell Santner play together in Tests as Sodhi can attack freely, thus being more expensive and the finger spinner (Worker/Santner) can tie things down.

The funk for me doesn't come from sporadic individual performances and even then, there weren't too many of those in either game. This tour is crucial because it takes young kiwi cricketers out of their comfort zones, of their cricketing status-quo and places them in an adverse environment that challenges them. This doesn't happen nearly enough and the results for the Blackcaps and this tour, speak for themselves. Perhaps the most telling take-away from this tour is that Aotearoa's best bowler was Sodhi and the best batsman was Raval, two kiwi-Indian lads who were born in India and made moves to Aotearoa at young ages.

I don't quite know how to digest that though. Sodhi rips leggies, so spin-friendly conditions are likely to help him a lot more than the plethora of seamers that were selected. Sodhi's also had the most experience around the world playing for the Blackcaps, specifically in the sub-continent and recently in England of this Aotearoa A team. Sodhi is the most 'wordly' player in this squad, who has had the most exposure to different conditions and - most importantly - different blokes who offer different pieces of wisdom.

Raval? Well Raval's our Test opener and is the only bloke in this team who is a near-certainty for Test selection, right now. Raval should be scoring the most runs and while it's convenient to suggest that because they are Indian, they performed the best in India, that's kinda silly. They are the best players in this squad, both of whom have earned that status by performances in Aotearoa, in both domestic cricket and for Aotearoa.

I find this interesting because this is where we get into 'excuse' territory - where failures in India for example are expected because, well, it's India and our lads always suck in India (yes all Indian teams dominate in India, but let's strive for something better yo). To say that Sodhi and Raval performed the best because they are kiwi-Indians, is like an automatic excuse for everyone else in the team. Any time a kiwi cricket team goes to the sub-continent, a similar narrative is rolled out in this fashion and the repetition of failure in the sub-continent not only suggests insanity, but signals a lack of any sort of development in kiwi cricket.

These four-day games in India is fantastic and it should merely be the starting point for more frequent tours overseas. Kiwi cricketers have been 'not good enough' in the sub-continent for as long as I can remember and it's frustrating because little is done to change that. In my mind, NZC should invest in annual 'A' tours for both men and women to the sub-continent and instead of being slaves to India, let's go to Sri Lanka one year, Bangladesh the next and the U.A.E the following year.

Otherwise, our young kiwi cricketers spend their development in a kiwi comfort zone at the hub of kiwi cricket in Lincoln. Fantastic, lovely, super duper, but what happens when the Blackcaps tour overseas? Are our young cricketers facing adversity in rugged, tough conditions? Or are they training within their comfort zone. Two hefty losses to India A suggests that kiwi cricketers sit in the comfort zone.

But hey, at least we've got this tour right? It's been a while, here's hoping it's the start of something different.

Peace and love 27.

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