It was the second consecutive day of the visitor tucking into home comforts. Relishing the hospitality and conditions on a run-soaked pitch, Rachin Ravindra, with family roots in the city, made the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium his happy hunting ground with a second international century at the venue on Friday.
Ravindra’s 137-run partnership with Tim Southee for the eighth wicket wrested the initiative from the host as India conceded a daunting 356-run first-innings lead – the most it has been in the red at home since 2013.
Rachin Ravindra in action. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K / The Hindu
Though India had shaved 231 runs off the deficit, with Virat Kohli and Sarfaraz Khan’s half-centuries paving the way for a historic fightback. However, Kohli got a feather to the wicketkeeper off Glenn Phillips off the last ball of the day, leaving a bitter aftertaste.
The duo’s defiance came in the wake of the unlucky dismissals of openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma. Jaiswal was stranded outside his crease after stepping out too early to Ajaz Patel, while Rohit thought he had middled his forward press, but the ball went off the inside half of the bat before trickling onto the stumps.
Kohli, dropped on 53 by Ajaz, and Sarfaraz motored along at a fast clip. It helped that Rohit had dispelled the ghosts of the first innings by laying into Matt Henry with his trademark pulls en route to a 59-ball fifty.
Kohli and Sarfaraz Khan built a healthy partnership. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K / The Hindu
When the large frame of William O’Rourke was brought on against Kohli, with a reinforcement at leg slip, Sarfaraz assumed the mantle with an upper-cut and a ramp for a six and a four, respectively. Meanwhile, Kohli took a cue from Sarfaraz’s penchant for sweeps. The latter had swept Ajaz for back-to-back fours and then consecutive sixes.
There was also a glimpse of vintage Kohli in a cover-drive off O’Rourkee, and then a peak into the contemporary when he stepped out against Ajaz, against the run of play, to launch the ball down the ground.
O’Rourke was unleashed for a four-over short-ball barrage, which Kohli and Sarfaraz rode out, but Phillips had the last laugh.
Earlier, it was hardly the typical lower-order resistance, with Ravindra and Southee unleashing a brutal assault on India’s spinners – particularly the old warhorse Ravichandran Ashwin, who alternated between long hops and innocuously tossed up deliveries to concede 5.87 runs an over across a 16-over spell.
By the time the alliance prospered into a century-stand, Ravindra and Southee had shared responsibilities in equal measure – facing 47 and 44 balls, respectively – while cranking through the gears.
It was the penultimate over before Lunch and Ashwin’s 20-run pasting off the six deliveries that followed summed up India’s horror, in tone and tenor.
Ashwin tossed one up on leg-stump, and Ravindra gobbled the opportunity with a sweep to the fine-leg boundary to notch up his 124-ball century. He then handed his former skipper the strike, who first made room outside off, then hopped down the track and finally swept behind for two fours and a six on the bounce.
Ravichandran Ashwin had a day to forget. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K / The Hindu
Mohammed Siraj was brought back for one final charge before the break, replacing a deflated Ravindra Jadeja, who was also smarting a bruising treatment. Ravindra had earmarked Jadeja to showcase his range, off both the front and back foot. He stayed back to the left-arm spinner’s flatter trajectory, playing with soft hands behind point, and then strode forward to drive through extra-cover for consecutive boundaries.
In Jadeja’s next over, Ravindra leapt on the width offered, fetching the ball from wide outside off to clear the fence at midwicket and then dropping his wrists to find the boundary behind square on the off-side, again off back-to-back deliveries.
Before smashing India’s time-tested spin duo out of the attack, Ravindra and Southee took a toll on Kuldeep Yadav with three fours in the span of five deliveries. The left-hander gave Kuldeep the charge, neutralising Kuldeep’s stock ball that would turn away from him, and Southee topped it with a nonchalant sweep to the square-leg boundary.
It is not every day that an Indian spin trio is plundered for 119 runs in 20 overs at home in a single session, but it wasn’t just any other rearguard either.
It held up the mirror to the middle-order, which was first undone by Jasprit Bumrah and Siraj’s consistency and seam movement, then by poor judgement of Jadeja’s skiddy lengths.
Siraj trumped Daryl Mitchell in a battle of patience, drawing an outside edge to gully after homing in on the good-length area. Similarly, Bumrah had Tom Blundell at his wits’ end, and Rohit exacerbated the latter’s nerves by immediately moving himself to third slip. Blundell duly obliged, hanging his bat outside off-stump as Bumrah’s good-length delivery moved away a touch to catch the outside edge.
Siraj and Bumrah combined for a 12-over opening spell that yielded just 36 runs, but that was the calm before the storm.
For Phillips and Henry, attack was the best defence. Phillips wishfully swiped outside off and perilously drove on the up right from the start but was caught playing off the backfoot to Jadeja’s arm-ball that kissed his pad on the way to the stumps. Henry swung across the line to see his stumps disturbed after chastening Jadeja with two successive fours.
However, Ravindra and Southee soon had the Indian bowlers on the mat, and when the former walked back after miscuing a sweep, he had the crowd up on its feet and New Zealand in the ascendancy.
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