Tour of New Zealand 2002-03                    Captain: Sourav Ganguly
	49th Test tour   Seventh Test-playing tour of New Zealand by India   (December 2002 -              January 2003)	New Zealand Cricket's 47-day tour itinerary, agreed to in July 2002, packed in two Test matches before Christmas and seven ODIs in a row, designed to meet the needs of both teams preparing for the 2003 ICC World Cup. John Wright toured his home country for the first time since becoming Indian coach. Wisden's Almanack described the tour as "an unmitigated disaster". India conceded the two-Test series in quick time, the first Test lasting only to the middle of the third afternoon and the second requiring less playing time than the first.  It was another low-scoring affair with New Zealand stubbornly resisting India to gain a narrow win.  The tourists then lost the first four one-day internationals in a row and thus the series, gaining only consolation wins in two of the remaining matches. Captain Ganguly called it the worst that one of his sides had played. Wet weather and seaming pitches created problems for batsmen on both sides but India's batsmen seemingly lacked enough commitment to counter the seaming ball. Among the bowlers only Zaheer Khan in the Tests and Srinath in the ODIs took advantage of the substandard bowler-friendly pitches.	Other Indian tours   Previous tour England 2002   Next tour Australia 2003-04     Next New Zealand tour 2008-09
	Members of the Test tour  party (16)     Opening batsmen: Virender Sehwag, Sanjay Bangar, Shiv Sundur Das Middle-order batsmen: Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Mohammad Kaif, V V S Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar Wicket-keepers: Parthiv Patel, Ajay Ratra Spinners: Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik Fast bowlers: Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra, Tinu Yohannan, Zaheer Khan	A B Agarkar Mb 25 RFM ODI   S B Bangar Rly 30 RHB opener ODI   S S Das Os 25 RHB opener     R S Dravid K 28 RHB   vice-captain ODI   S C Ganguly Bn 30 LHB   captain ODI   Harbhajan Singh Pj 22 OB ODI   Mohammad Kaif UP 22 RHB ODI   M Kartik Rly 26 SLA     V V S Laxman Hd 28 RHB ODI  A fine player but unconvincing in these conditions A Nehra D 23 LFM ODI (r)   P A Patel Gj 17 LHB    WK ODI   A Ratra Hy 21 deputy WK     V Sehwag D 24 RHB opener    OB ODI  Completely out of place in the unfriendly pitch and weather conditions. S R Tendulkar Mb 29 RHB   deputy captain ODI   T Yohannan Ke 23 RMF     Zaheer Khan Ba 24 LFM ODI  Succeeded because he assessed the conditions better, and directed his aggression accordingly   Joined the tour party for the Yuvraj Singh ODI   one-day internationals A Kumble ODI       J Srinath ODI       D Mongia ODI (r)       R B Patel ODI (r)	Representation of teams:   Ba - Baroda (1) Bn - Bengal (1) D - Delhi (2) Gj - Gujarat (1) Hd - Hyderabad (1) Hy - Haryana (1) K - Karnataka (1) Ke - Kerala (1) Mb - Mumbai (2) Os - Orissa (1) Pj - Punjab (1) Rly - Railways (2) UP  - Uttar Pradesh (1)      Average age of  team at time of first Test match   (12 December 2002) :       25  yrs  3 months     ODI  member of National Bank ODI series squad
	Test Appearances made before the tour	Tendulkar 103,  Dravid 67,  Ganguly 65,  Laxman 42,  Harbhajan Singh 31,  Das 23,   Zaheer Khan 22,   Agarkar 15,   Sehwag 12,  Nehra 11,  Bangar 10,  Ratra 6,  Patel 5,  Kartik 4,  Kaif 4,  Yohannan 2.
	Team Officials	N R Chowdhury Tour Manager J G Wright Coach A Leipus Physiotherapist A le Roux Trainer   Bowling coach   The manager N R Chowdhury played for India twice v West Indies in 1948-49, and toured England in 1952.
	Selectors	Brijesh Patel (South, chairman),  Kirti Azad (North),  Kiran More (West),  Pranab Roy (East) and  Sanjay Jagdale (Central). Also present at the selection meeting in Mumbai were captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright.
	Selection	Unavailable:   Anil Kumble for the Test matches  (for 'personal reasons');  Javagal Srinath (injured) Sachin Tendulkar (hamstring) and Zaheer Khan (shin injury) were passed fit to tour on 22 November.   Tour Party Announced:   25 November 2002 The selectors picked sixteen players for the three-week Test section of the tour, one more player than in New Zealand in 1994 (a four week tour) or in 1998-99 (five weeks).  Some played only in the 20-over Super Max game while Rakesh Patel who was called into the one-day party did not play in a single match.   Not selected   Sarandeep Singh (spin bowler), Deep Dasgupta (wk);Balaji would have considered himself unlucky and Yohannan's selection was a surprise choice.  A niggling injury forced the selectors to rest  Srinath until the one-day series began.   The selectors met again in Kolkata between the first and second Tests (18 December) to pick a 16-man team for the one-dayers but held back two of their selections to monitor performances in the second Test   A Kumble (K), J Srinath (K) and Yuvraj Singh (Pj) were chosen to replace SS Das, M Kartik, Ratra, A Nehra and Yohannan. Then the selectors added RB Patel (Ba), and asked Nehra to remain with the squad	Time between selection and departure from India   6 days   (25 November - 1 December)
	Travel	Players started assembling on the evening of 30 November and left from N.S.C.Bose International Airport, Kolkata, on a Royal Brunei flight Sunday morning 1 December.   The team was seen off by the Board president, Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya.  Departure was originally due to be from New Delhi, but then changed to Kolkata.   After 18 hours of flying via Bangkok, they landed at Auckland (2 December) and then flew on to Christchurch. Two of the cricketers Harbhajan Singh and batsman Virender Sehwag were fined $NZ 200 by New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture for arriving in the country with undeclared shoes (which must all be inspected for risk of importing pests).	Time spent in New Zealand    44 days (2 December - 15 January)
	On-tour selection committee	Ganguly (captain),  Wright (coach), Chowdhury (manager), Dravid (vice-captain), Tendulkar.
	Reinforcements	None for the Test series Although due to return home with the other Test series players, S S Das remained with the squad for the first one-day international because Tendulkar sprained his right ankle. Dinesh Mongia (Pj) arrived in New Zealand on 2 January on a specific request from the team management for the remainder of the one-day series.
	Fixtures/Results	† Christchurch New Zealand XI (10 overs) Lost 21 r Napier Central Districts Drawn WELLINGTON NEW ZEALAND First Test LOST 10 w HAMILTON NEW ZEALAND Second Test LOST 4 w § Auckland New Zealand  (1st ODI) Lost 3 w § Napier New Zealand  (2nd ODI) Lost 35 r § Christchurch New Zealand  (3rd ODI) Lost 5 w § Queenstown New Zealand  (4th ODI) Lost 7 w § Wellington New Zealand  (5th ODI) Won 2 w § Auckland New Zealand  (6th ODI) Won 1 w § Hamilton New Zealand  (7th ODI) Lost 6 w	† not first-class §  one-day international   Time spent in New Zealand before First Test:  10 days  (2 - 12 December)
	Test appearances on tour	2 -   Bangar,  Dravid,  Ganguly,  Harbhajan Singh,  Laxman,  Nehra,  Patel,  Sehwag,  Tendulkar,  Zaheer Khan 1 -  Agarkar,  Yohannan. 0 -  Das,  Mohammad Kaif,  Kartik,  Ratra.
	Highlights	•    Zaheer Khan returned his Test-best figures of 5-29 at Hamilton after taking 5-53 in the first Test at Wellington.  •    Apart from Dravid (76) and Tendulkar (51) at Wellington, no Indian scored a fifty in the Tests.
	Tour Summary	P W L D Test Matches   2 0 2 0 Other first-class matches   1 0 0 1 † Minor matches   1 0 1 0 § One-day internationals   7 2 5 0 All Matches 11 2 8 1
	Return to India	Murali Kartik, Tinu Yohannan and Ajay Ratra returned home from Auckland at the end of the Test series on 25 December.  Shiv Sunder Das left two days later. The ill-starred New Zealand tour ended with the one-day party flying out from Auckland on 15 January 2003. They landed at Mumbai Airport on Friday morning 17 January. Ganguly gave reporters the slip leaving from a rear exit of the airport and later caught a flight to Kolkata. Vice-captain Rahul Dravid and his Karnataka teammates went on to Bangalore.	Time away from India   48 days   (1 December to 17 January)
	Finances

Powered by Create