Having played a crucial role in helping New Zealand go past 200 runs on a rank-turner, batter Daryl Mitchell said the half-hour before the tea break on the first day of the third Test was the toughest and he was happy to jump into an ice-break in the break.

New Zealand had expected things to be difficult at the Wankhede Stadium and Mitchell said to come out of the challenging day and help his team into a good position giving him a feeling of pride.

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“I think it was probably more the first hour after lunch with me and Will Young that was seriously warm and that’s probably what took it out of us. You could see a number of the Indian players as well were commenting how much they were battling with it as well so yeah that last half an hour before tea was just about trying to be switched on for when the bowler was bowling and trying to conserve as much energy as I could in between balls and try and concentrate on breathing and trying to get my core body temperature down because that was probably what was causing my struggle,” said Mitchell in the day-end press conference on Friday.

“Obviously, that tea break was good timing, I jumped in the ice bath and sat in there for about 10 minutes so I definitely came out feeling a lot better after that,” he said.

Bowled out for 235 in which Mitchell top-scored with 82 and Will Young contributed 71, New Zealand wrested back the initiative by reducing the hosts to 86/4 at stumps, claiming three quick wickets after Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill added 53 runs for the second wicket partnership.

Mitchell said they will look to grab a few early wickets on Saturday morning and put the Indians under further pressure. He said the Test is evenly balanced right now and the morning session on Saturday will be crucial.

“That’s the nature of Test cricket, there’s always ebbs and flows throughout days and we were lucky tonight to build some pressure, and there was a nice partnership going there between Shubman and Jaiswal and I thought they played really well and then, as it happens in Test cricket, you get one, you try and get two and you keep trying to put pressure on. That’s why we love the game, that’s why we keep showing up day in and day out. Hopefully, we can take a few more in the morning but we also know that they’ve got a number of world-class players,” said Mitchell.

The New Zealand batter said the New Zealand batters were playing fewer sweep and reverse sweep shots in this series, unlike their peers, because they are constantly trying to weigh in the risk involved.

“Something we pride ourselves on is how we adapt to different conditions all around the world, and knowing the red soil and the bounce that can produce at times, it’s finding the right times to use the sweep and put pressure on them but also accepting that they’re allowed to bowl good balls.

“The risk that a sweep shot can bring at times with the bounce so it’s just constantly trying to weigh up how they’re trying to bowl to you, what they’re trying to do and how you can put pressure back on them. We did that well for periods especially the partnership with me and Young,” he added.

He said that New Zealand did not make any special preparations for this series and that they have batters who have played a lot in India, and who have made a difference.

“If you look throughout our batting line up there’s a number of guys who have played not only Test cricket but a lot of international cricket in this part of the world now and I guess we know how we want to go about playing on these surfaces and against world-class bowlers like Ashwin and Jadeja. We’re just a bunch of Kiwis taking on the world, having fun and trying to win games for our country and are very proud to do so hopefully, we can just keep chipping away as Kiwis do, and we’ll see what happens over the next few days,” said Mitchell.

Mitchell credited the energy and exuberance of his teammates for the three quick wickets towards the end of the day that turned the tide in New Zealand’s favour.

“You want to keep taking wickets so it’s always nice. It’s the nature of the surface and playing Test cricket over here. We’re happy about how we hung in there while they were building a partnership and you know when you get one you hopefully can get two and three so that’s sort of our motto: just keep giving to the team. The way Rachin and some of the other guys chased the ball right to the boundary, that’s the stuff that we pride ourselves on and it means everyone’s engaged, everyone’s giving to the team so that when we get one hopefully we can get another and it’s nice that it paid off,” said Mitchell.