Claiming the wicket of Virat Kohli is any bowler’s dream. Mitchell Santner is no different.
At the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Friday, it was a dream come true for the New Zealand left-arm spinner. In a rare occurrence, Kohli missed a full-toss that rattled his middle-stump.
While there was pin-drop silence at the venue, Santner, too, was shocked by the manner in which Kohli was dismissed.
“I was in more of a shock getting Kohli out off a full-toss. He doesn’t usually miss those,” Santner said with a smile after the day’s play.
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“It was slightly slower through the air. I just tried to change it up a little bit, but usually, if you bowl those, they go for six. There was obviously a little bit there, which was nice, and the change of pace was the key today…”
On a surface that offered turn, Santner was clever in his pace variations and ranged his stump-to-stump line between the mid-70s to mid-90s kph range. It not only put the Indian batters under pressure but also allowed Santner to claim a rare seven-for.
“I tend to do that a lot in white-ball cricket, changing the pace. Today, we kind of spoke about that kind of just under 90k an hour like it’s spinning and then for a period there when you went over the top, it was actually bouncing a lot,” Santner said.
“We spoke about maybe going a little bit slower, but at the start, it was kind of fast into it, and then it kind of changed as the day went on with the pitch. Washy (Washington Sundar) did that as well. He did that very well. The first day, it was 95, and then he started to slow it up and get the variation that kept the batters guessing.”
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