There were moments during the first half of the Auckland game when it seemed that the script from the previous three matches was being re-enacted; New Zealand trying to get away but the Indian bowlers exerting enough control to keep them within reasonable limits.Here it must be said that what is considered ‘reasonable’ for the current Indian T20I line-up may not be so for other teams. Shreyas Iyer and his men have the power to make any target seem grossly inadequate, as the previous three games would attest.On Friday too, after a couple of tight overs, when the hosts got on a tear and crossed 100 inside nine overs, there was dire need of someone to exert some control. Axar Patel and Mayank Yadav did so by conceding nine runs in two overs, snaring a wicket in the bargain to check the Kiwi momentum. Any total around 225 would have been well within India’s reach, especially given the postage-stamp size of Eden Park.The two did nothing fancy. Axar kept changing his pace, attacked the stumps and bowled to his field. Mayank relied on his biggest strength – pace – bowling largely length and getting a wicket with a well-directed short ball.But such is the skewed and fickle nature of the T20 format and so small the margin of error for bowlers, that an onslaught is never too far away. Especially given Glenn Phillips’s recent form. From 113/4 in nine overs, the score shot to 226/4 in 17. Mayank and Prince Yadav offered slot balls aplenty, Naman Dhir found out that he can’t expect to saunter to the wicket and get cheap wickets every day, and Nitish Kumar Reddy discovered that an over can feel unending when deliveries keep disappearing in the stands.ALSO READ | Glenn Phillips finds the holes and shows India isn’t invincibleBut it’s the nature of the format and the explosive capabilities of the Indian batting that a target of around 250 was being considered only par for the course. When the first ball of the chase was smashed by Sanju Samson over mid-off for a boundary, the Kiwis could have been forgiven for thinking ‘here we go again’. That the pursuit was derailed inside the first over itself, with two wickets, on way to a collapse of 89/6 well inside the halfway mark, doesn’t happen often.Story continues below this adThe high-risk approach of the Indians makes such an occurrence a possibility, but that’s an eventuality the team management can live with. But on such days, the lack of experience and proven pedigree in the bowling line-up is exposed. The likes of Dhir and Reddy can’t be expected to do a viable job every day, Axar Patel is more miss than hit these days, and Mayank and Prince are still on a learning curve, leaving only Arshdeep Singh as a reliable option. The game plan clearly is to pack the batting with bowling becoming largely a damage-limitation exercise.That approach has its merits, especially with a batting line-up that can make any run-chase a joke inside a handful of overs. It forces opposition batters to go harder than they would like, opting for a strategy that could result in wickets. When no score is safe, one can never be going too fast batting first. While most of the plaudits have deservedly gone to India’s top order and the late-middle order, the bowlers have done their bit in keeping New Zealand from getting within sight of the target, till a day like Friday when the odds catch up and the wheels come off.When the average T20 scores are going through the roof, overs of 4, 5 or 7 runs are like gold dust. To be fair, there were such overs on Friday as well; the problem being they were more than compensated with several in the 20s and one in the 30s.With a straight boundary less than 50m away, that’s no surprise, and sometimes, the task gets too much even for the most explosive line-up in the format. There were some tight overs towards the end, but the next flurry of boundaries was always round the corner.Story continues below this adThe likes of Abhishek Sharma, Samson and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi up front and Tilak Varma, Dhir and Reddy towards the end will not be able to get the job done every time, but the think tank can live with that. The job of the Indian bowlers is just to give them a chance.