MOHALI: Landscape-gazing from an airplane window is a fascinating exercise, mostly because the topography of each city tells its own story. While Dharamsala has gorgeously irregular shapes, with its jagged hills and silent valleys, Delhi’s tightly-packed clusters paint a chaotic visual. New Zealand’s performance in the first two ODIs mirrored these patterns. There was one big innings in between several small ones in Dharamsala. Then the bowlers banded together and found redemption in a panicky finish in Delhi. The 1-1 scoreline may offer temporary respite, but for New Zealand to pull ahead their batting needs to go beyond the twin-prongs of Tom Latham and captain Kane Williamson. Should they replicate the consistency of Chandigarh’s neatly carved, symmetric landscape in their performances, they would have done their job. India, on the other hand, won’t worry over the Delhi loss. MS Dhoni’s grouse about the absence of big partnerships may be justified, but the middle and lower-middle orders didn’t look entirely out of depth. Kedar Jadhav was very good before Hardik Pandya’s bravado, in the company of Umesh Yadav, almost took them home. India will want to win the series, but in making allowance for the younger players to make mistakes, learn from them and find their feet in their respective roles, they could also keep the bigger picture of the Champions Trophy in mind. In the spotlight: Kedar Jadhav has provided excellent value for money in this series. He is very new to the role of part-time bowler but has delivered wickets on order in both the games. Then he smashed a 37-ball 41 on a sluggish Kotla surface where batsmen struggled to score quickly. If Jadhav could be moulded into a finisher alongside Pandya, he would count as among India’s biggest gains from this series. Tom Latham has the most runs for New Zealand on the tour. He also has the most fifties. While he carried his bat in Dharamsala, his dismissal against the run of play in Delhi slowed down his team’s scoring rate. With the middle order not pulling its weight, Latham will be expected to bat deep into the innings again. Pitch and conditions: Southee said he was pleased to see some grass on the pitch in Mohali, although not much could be read into that considering the venue has traditionally been good for batting in ODIs. In the afternoon, head curator Daljeet Singh and Dhoni were seen having a long chat, following which the light roller was used on the pitch. Squad: India: MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah New Zealand: Kane Williamson (capt), Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Ross Taylor, Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi (wk), James Neesham/Anton Devcich, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Matt Henry.