‘Home is not a place, it’s a feeling’ became more than just a tacky catchphrase as the Kiwis, under gloomy skies overhead and a nip in the air around, skittled India for its lowest total (46) at home on the second day of the opening Test at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday.
It was a day when things could only take a turn for the worse for the host. The sun-starved city was bathed in gleaming light when the visitor came out to bat and India fluffed a string of chances in the field to concede a 134–run first-innings lead.
Rishabh Pant injured his knee and hobbled off the field after missing the opportunity to stump Devon Conway out on 89 off Ravindra Jadeja. To provide some relief and instill belief, Ravichandran Ashwin castled Conway, who attempted an audacious reverse-sweep nine runs short of his hundred.
India’s wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant hobbles off. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K / The Hindu
He was emboldened by his shots earlier in the day as he aced the different variants of the sweep, first sweeping conventionally and then going for the reverse for consecutive boundaries off Ashwin.
He pummelled the spinners down the ground when the ball was tossed up, prompting Rohit Sharma to even take Ashwin off the attack. His assured strokeplay and leaves outside off-stump triggered a charged-up Mohammed Siraj, who stared him down and elicited a ‘decibel battle’ between CSK [Chennai Super Kings] and RCB [Royal Challengers Bengaluru] fans.
READ: IND vs NZ, 1st Test: Clear misjudgement of the pitch, say Rohit after Indian collapse
Siraj was smarting a dropped catch off his bowling when skipper Tom Latham’s outside edge left KL Rahul ball-watching in the slips. Rohit couldn’t hold on to a couple of chances in the slips off the spinners, but Conway and Will Young didn’t inflict too much damage.
India’s captain Rohit Sharma reacts. | Photo Credit: PTI Photo/Shailendra Bhojak
Kuldeep Yadav’s selection over Akash Deep in seaming conditions raised eyebrows but the spinner foxed Latham with his drift to give India a breakthrough. Jadeja then spun one away from Young to induce a top-edge on the sweep before Conway fell playing the reverse.
Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell combined to plug the leak until bad light resulted in Stumps being called 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
If New Zealand was impetuous towards Stumps, India lost the plot from the outset.
Wellington or Cubbon Road?
After the first day’s play was called off without a ball being bowled due to persistent rain, India, questionably, chose to bat and suddenly Wellington felt much closer than 7,000 miles away for New Zealand’s pace trio, which found movement in the air and off the pitch in the first session under lights.
A short midwicket, in place for Yashasvi Jaiswal, was moved to form a three-man cordon in the slips in the very first over as Tim Southee moved the ball both ways in the channel off a fullish length.
The Henry horror
Matt Henry, a fine exponent of extracting movement off the pitch, foxed Rohit early with one that straightened just enough to thud into his back pad, only for the Indian skipper to get a lucky reprieve on ‘umpire’s call’.
But with Southee and Henry stifling the run-scoring with their tight lines and lengths, and overcast conditions not helping the Indians, Rohit was tempted into dancing down the track to Southee and breaking the shackles. His leap of faith was breached by one that jagged back in sharply from outside off-stump and clipped the top of leg-stump.
India captain Rohit Sharma sees the woodwork break behind him. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K / The Hindu
From there on, the Indians fell in a heap. Virat Kohli, slotted at No.3 for the first time since 2016 in the absence of the injured Shubman Gill, was granted a rousing reception at his Indian Premier League (IPL) home ground, but the Kiwis weren’t as welcoming, and promptly placed a fourth slip.
Kohli responded by leaving the first three balls he faced, but when William O’Rourke’s menacing short-of-a-length delivery came into him sharply, he could only glove it to an astutely stationed leg-slip fielder for a nine-ball duck.
Sarfaraz Khan, in for Gill, drove on the up, the bat turned in his bat, and a diving Conway capitalised on the miscue with a stunning one-handed catch at mid-off.
Kiwis clip Indian wings
India was reduced to 10 for three, only for the third time in Tests at home, with the Kiwis being the culprits on all three occasions.
Pant staged a mini revival with Jaiswal, their 21-run association being the highest of the innings. The precarious situation didn’t impede Pant’s daredevilry, with the southpaw even attempting a reverse-sweep off Henry, that looped up just out of the wicketkeeper’s reach.
After a 35-minute rain interruption, Pant drove O’Rourke through cover-point for a boundary – the first of the match – to signal a shift in momentum, and when wicketkeeper Tom Blundell gave his opposite number a lifeline on seven, it felt like the stars were aligning.
O’Rourke also lost his rhythm a bit, bowling a no-ball and then a wide after Blundell’s blunder. Pant punched aerially off the backfoot, Jaiswal got his first boundary through a streaky drive, the skies brightened just a touch, and a recovery seemed imminent.
But in the three overs that followed, Jaiswal’s authoritative cut was snaffled at point, Rahul’s misfortune, coupled with O’Rourke’s wide-of-the-crease release, saw him strangled down leg-side, and Jadeja tucked too early to get a leading edge, as India lost three more wickets just as an appetite for lunch was building up.
From 34 for six, there was no lower-order resistance in the offing. Henry ran through the tail, finding both Ashwin and Pant’s outside edge by moving the ball away, and completed a century of scalps in the format by nabbing Kuldeep.
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