New Zealand’s first field day after seven days of wait (including the washed out Test against Afghanistan, and the rain-hit first day against India) turned out to be a dream outing as their seamers came up with deadly accurate bowling to skittle India out for 46, their lowest score at home and third-lowest overall.
It took a little over a session and precisely 31.2 overs for the New Zealanders to pack the home side an hour into the post-lunch session, and then rode on an enterprising 91 from opener Devon Conway to reach 180/3, and take a lead of 134 by stumps on the second day at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Thursday.
For the stats, this was the fourth-lowest first-innings score in Test history after a side had chosen to bat as Rohit Sharma seemed to have completely misread the conditions, and opted to bat besides picking three spinners, anticipating the dry nature of the track despite the overcast conditions, and the rainy lead-up to the match.
On the other hand, New Zealand, also wanted to bat first but smartly picked three seamers, including their most potent weapon in these conditions, Matt Henry, who ended up with a five-for that took him to 100 Test wickets. William O’Rourke (4/22) gave him good support while former skipper Tim Southee stared the onslaught with the wicket of Rohit Sharma.
India were three down inside the first 10 overs before a rain break allowed the team management to send a message to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant, and the left-handed duo raised hopes of stabilising the ship with a 21-run stand — the highest of the Indian innings, before the New Zealanders took control of the proceedings once again.
Pant (20) and Jaiswal (13) were the only ones to notch double digits as the Indian scorecard had as many as five ducks, including that of Virat Kohli, Sarfaraz Khan, KL Rahul and the spin-twins Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.
With Shubman Gill missing because of a stiff neck, there was a minor rejig in the batting order, that led to some batters walking out to their usual batting numbers. The absence of Gill prompted the team management to send Kohli at No. 3 for the first time since 2016, and similarly Sarfaraz (usually a No.5 batter in domestic cricket) to take the No.4 slot. In fact, on the hindsight, the team management must have overlooked the presence of Rahul — the batter perhaps best suited to seaming conditions, as the local lad is the only Asian opener with centuries in Australia, England and South Africa.
Eventually, the Indian batting fell like nine pins on a wicket where the ball kept moving even after the sun was out in the second session of play. The misadventure could serve them a great learning curve as they prepare for the first Test against Australia, a little over a month from now, at the pacers’ paradise — WACA in Perth from November 22.
Coming back to the ongoing Test, the New Zealand openers — Tom Latham and Conway — were hardly troubled during their 67-run opening stand on the same wicket. Latham, playing his first Test as full-time skipper, however fell to Kuldeep Yadav after setting the tone, and overhauling India’s first innings score for a 49-ball 15.
Conway, however, continued milking the Indian bowlers, and went on to bring up a solid half century, and together with Will Young (33) raised a 75-run second wicket partnership to mount further trouble on the home side. Conway, who had bossed Ravichandran Ashwin when the ball was new and hard, perished to the same bowler nine shy of a fifth Test century after facing 105 balls.
Towards the end of the day, Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell went back undefeated after adding 26 runs for the fourth wicket.
Brief Scores: India 46 all out (Rishabh Pant 20; Matt Henry 5/15, William O’Rourke 4/22) trail New Zealand 180/3 (Devon Conway 91, Will Young 33, Rachin Ravindra 22 not out) by 134 runs.