India took a 56-run lead at the end of the first innings, and while the advantage lies with Virat Kohli’s men, the batsmen will need to perform really well in the second innings to ensure their bowlers have enough of a total to play with in the final innings.
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India, well ahead at tea, pulled away rapidly thereafter. Vijay and Pujara then continued and registered second consecutive half-centuries in the match respectively.
Santner (28) is at the crease with Watling (3) and will resume batting when play resumes. With things going New Zealand’s way, Jadeja struck against the run of play to remove Ronchi (38).
Bowling: India: Mohammed Shami 11-1-35-0; Umesh Yadav 15-5-33-1; Ravindra Jadeja 34-7-73-5; R Ashwin 30.5-7-93-4; Murali Vijay 4-0-10-0; Rohit Sharma 1-0-5-0.
The wicket was still conducive for the batsmen and KL Rahul got off to a solid start.
“We did not rely on one or two guys to do the work”. The difference-maker was Ravindra Jadeja who scalped three wickets in just five deliveries to wipe out NZ’s lower-order.
The two teams’ first innings nearly mirrored each other.
For New Zealand, it will not only be important for them to take wickets but also stem the flow of runs.
McMillan also played down suggestions made by reporters that Williamson and Latham had tried to slow the Indian bowlers by taking unscheduled breaks.
His 137-ball vigil was ended by Ashwin. Trent Boult negotiated the hat-trick delivery but a ball later he popped one to silly point to complete Jadeja’s fifth five-wicket haul in Tests.
This news story is related to Latest/152357-India-build-big-lead-Jadeja-Ashwin-heroics/ – breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne. Jadeja followed suit with a straighter one in the next over to trap Ross Taylor for a duck.
The first to go was Latham, who was struck in front by an Ashwin delivery that went in with the arm.
Four balls later, 159 for 2 became 160 for 3. The right-hander went for a sweep shot, but missed the line of the ball to be adjudged lbw. The Green Park which hadn’t shown exceptional signs of spin on the first two days. But in the half-hour or so before tea, the ball had begun spitting and hissing with greater frequency. New Zealand, which is now on 95 points, will remain at the seventh position with any of these margins with the maximum drop to 91 points in case they lose all the three matches.
Neither Mark Craig nor Sodhi could give Kane Williamson even the semblance of control, let alone build pressure.
Tucker, though, did not see any replays; what he saw was a batsman sweeping from the stumps, a ball pitching fairly close to the batsman, and dust flying everywhere. The first ball of that wonderful over was a dot, then two wickets in two balls, two more dots and another wicket to finish the over off. Likewise with the Taylor and Sodhi decisions.
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But despite the challenging conditions, the New Zealand batsmen still managed to maintain a decent scoring rate.
