Ravindra Jadeja (4/52) and Ravichandran Ashwin (3/63) shared seven wickets between them to marginally hand India the upper hand in the third and final Test even as New Zealand took a second innings lead of 143 runs after ending the second day’s play at 171/9 at the Wankhede Stadium here on Saturday.

Continuing from where he left in the first innings, Jadeja, who took a fifer on day 1, once again tormented the Kiwi batters on a crumbling surface which according to his long-time spin twin Ashwin was slower than expected.

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“I expected a lot more bounce and speed from this Mumbai pitch but it has been slow. Not a typical Bombay pitch; it was much slower,” said Ashwin after the day’s play.

Desperate to avoid a whitewash for the first time at home in a series of three or more Tests, India came out with an all-out effort to recover from the nightmare of the final 10 minutes of the opening day. As such, Ashwin conceded that the attempt was to keep the target as low as possible after 29 wickets tumbled inside two days of play.

“Hopefully not many (on the target). It’s not going to be easy and we have to bat well,” Ashwin said.

The 38-year-old was instrumental in triggering New Zealand’s second innings collapse, after getting Jadeja to the favourable end and getting him his first wicket with a superb catch running back to thwart Daryl Mitchell’s (21) plans of doing an encore of his first innings association with Will Young (51) after the fall of three top-order wickets.

While the duo marginally managed to revive New Zealand’s fortunes with a crucial 50-run partnership for the fourth wicket, Mitchell’s wicket allowed Jadeja find back his rhythm as the left-arm spinner ran through the middle and lower order towards the end of the day. On these kinds of pitches, one wicket generally brings two or more and that was the case for the second day in a row. Tom Blundell’s horror series continued as he got cleaned up by Jadeja in no time.

For the BlackCaps, Young’s second fifty in the match and Glenn Phillips’ (26) power-hitting made sure they had more than the bare minimum to bowl at.

But by the time, Young had done all the hard work to survive the fury from the Indian spinners on a difficult track, Ashwin set up the rookie right-hander’s dismissal beautifully in a span of three deliveries, before finally ending his resistance with a carrom-ball that the batter drove straight into the hands of the bowler. Phillips departed off a similar delivery after misjudging it for the off-spinner, and as a result crashing through his defences. Matt Henry and Ajaz Patel hit a six apiece to add some useful runs before the former became Jadeja’s fourth wicket at the fag end of the day.

Earlier, the final session started with New Zealand shakily placed at 26 for 1. With the surface getting increasingly difficult to bat, Devon Conway helped the visitors overturn India’s slender 28-run first innings lead before falling to Washington Sundar’s fizzing off break that just took off after pitching to find the edge. While Conway’s dismissal was unfortunate, Rachin Ravindra’s was inexplicable as the southpaw stepped out for a wild slog against a sharp spinning off break from Ashwin, only to be stumped by a country mile.

Shubman, Pant, Sundar keep India ahead amidst Patel’s fury

India resumed the day with Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant striking contrasting half-centuries to add 96 runs at better than five an over to arrest the rot that had set in in on the first evening, but it took a cameo of 38 off 36 from Washington Sundar to take the home side’s lead past 25 in the face of a resurgent Ajaz Patel, who took his second five-for in the city of his birth.

Ish Sodhi and Phillips gave Patel good support with the former striking the big blow of Pant just when the duo looked threatening to take the game completely away from the visitors. Following Pant’s departure, India started losing wickets in heaps, with Ashwin and Jadeja failing to click with the bat, leaving Gill fight a lone battle before perishing himself to Ajaz’s guile, 10 shy of a brilliant century. If not for a powerful cameo from Sundar, India may have struggled to take the first innings lead.

Brief scores: New Zealand 235 and 171/9 (Will Young 51; Ravindra Jadeja 4-52, Ravichandran Ashwin 3-63) lead India 263 (Shubman Gill 90, Rishabh Pant 60; Ajaz Patel 5-103) by 143 runs.