After the tea break, Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma tried to do the fix job.
Advertisement
Captain Kane Williamson and opener Tom Latham led a strong New Zealand reply with unbeaten half-centuries before rain washed out the final session of the second day of the first test against India on Friday.
Santner however, provided the crucial breakthrough but it was a soft dismissal as Pujara committed to a shot with the ball stopping on him offering a simple return catch.
After 11 overs of toiling on an unresponsive pitch, Neil Wagner struck a body blow when he banged it short and enticed Kohli (nine) to attempt a pull shot early in his innings, only for the right-hander to top edge a catch to Ish Sodhi.
Latham was 56 not out at the break, while Williamson was on 65 with New Zealand trailing India by 166 runs at Kanpur’s Green Park Stadium where a light drizzle started soon after tea was taken. K L Rahul, who looked in great touch striking eight fours while making 38, missed out on building something more significant for the second time in the match.
M Vijay and KL Rahul put on 42 for the opening wicket, Cheteshwar Pujara joined Vijay in a 112-run stand for the second wicket, and later on, Rohit Sharma and R Ashwin did a mini rescue act with 52 runs for the sixth wicket.
The first session had produced one for 105 off 31 overs; but the second (80 for three) and especially the third (106 for five) went New Zealand’s way.
India won the toss and elected to bat on a surface that already had clearly visible cracks on it looking to pile up the runs before batting becomes exceedingly hard.
That’s not going to happen but left arm spinner Mitchell Santner did a quality job for his captain, especially in the first two sessions, and offspinner Mark Craig got better as the day wore on. Pujara, Vijay and Ashwin played really well. The wicket is on the slower side and it will be hard to score runs.
“The wicket of Kohli was a big wicket but down to Jadeja at nine they have got a very good batting line-up”.
Speaking about the Kiwi bowling attack who put up a brilliant show on the opening day, the Tamil Nadu batsman said, “I would say, they had a good attack”.
Pujara, coming into the match on the back of a first-class double century, looked confident while stroking on both sides of the wicket and used his feet well to work the ball around. “Coming to this series, I am just happy to play cricket again”. They had a plan against the spinners and they rotated the strike well. First things first, it’s to get the last wicket early tomorrow and then once we bat, build partnerships and go from there.
Advertisement
But losing the toss meant New Zealand will be batting last, when ideally they’d have preferred to be bowling to make use of their spinners as the pitch wears.
