India batsman Hanuma Vihari on Saturday ruled poor shot selection from the touring batsmen due to their failure in the first innings of the second Test against New Zealand at the Hegley Oval in Christchurch on Saturday.
India were bundled for a below-par score of 242 as the lower middle-order collapsed from 194/4. It was mainly because of half-centuries from Vihari, Prithvi Shaw and Cheteshwar Pujara that the visitors managed to reach a respectable total.
After some initial restlessness, India seemed to cruise along nicely with Pujara and Vihari looking settled. But the Kiwi bowlers never let the Indian batsmen get a hold of the steering wheel and managed to break the 81-run partnership between the duo.
“They bowled in good areas and knew what to expect from this track. Prithvi set the tone, Pujara spent time. All dismissals happened at the wrong time. None of the dismissals were because of the pitch. Mostly it was because of batsmen’s error. Pitch was fair,” Vihari was quoted as saying by PTI.
“As Pujara was playing at one end and I wanted to take that lead and play positively because he is a player who will play for a lot of time. We know that. So I didn’t also want to take time and put pressure on Pujara or on our innings because if you don’t keep scoreboard moving you will get stuck like in the last game,” he added.
Speaking about his dismissal off a short delivery from Neil Wagner, Vihari regretted his decision and admitted it was a wrong time to get out and it affected the team dearly.
“It was a wrong time to get out obviously just before tea as we had a good session. We scored 110 runs and lost only one wicket prior to that. I was batting positively but I played one shot too many,” Vihari said.
After dismissing the Indian batsmen on 242 runs in their first innings on Saturday, New Zealand scored 63 runs without losing any wicket at the stumps of opening day’s play.