“291/9, not too bad”, he said.
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For New Zealand, spinner Santner and pacer Trent Boult claimed three wickets each, while Wagner bagged a couple and Ish Sodhi and Craig got one wicket a piece.
When India bowled, Jadeja was introduced into the attack by skipper Virat Kohli in the third over of the Kiwi innings but neither him nor Ravichandran Ashwin got a wicket.
A host of former Test captains including Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev and Mahendra Singh Dhoni were in the crowd to celebrate the milestone match at the start of a packed season of global cricket for India.
New Zealand (first innings) 152/1 (Tom Latham 56 batting, Kane Williamson 66 batting; Umesh Yadav 1/22) vs India (first innings) 318 (Murali Vijay 65, Cheteshwar Pujara 62, Ravindra Jadeja 42 not out; Trent Boult 3/67, Mitchell Santner 3/94).
Around the time the New Zealand innings touched the 30-over mark, skipper Virat Kohli was seen rubbing the ball vigorously on his pants at mid-on as Umesh Yadav measured his run-up.
Batting at six, Rohit Sharma made a fluent 35 but has not fully shown that he can replicate his limited-overs success in the longest format.
Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma too failed to make big contributions.
Earlier the morning session and 45 minutes into the post lunch session were dominated by Vijay and Pujara.
They were severe when the spinners dropped the ball short.
They brought up their individual fifties in successive overs before Santner had Pujara popping a simple return catch.
Talking about his dismissal, Vijay admitted that it was an error in shot selection.
Two other spinners, Sodhi and Mark Craig also captured a wicket each.
Vijay acknowledged that the visitors have a potent bowling line-up, but rued the fact that India couldn’t capitalise on a good start after having been 154 for 2 at one stage. “We got out to loose shots as well and the wicket was deteriorating as well”. It’s a lesson learnt and hopefully we can put up a better show in the second innings.
The Tamil Nadu opener said that despite losing wickets in a heap, India were in a “good position”.
New Zealand’s mindset will be to expect the worst as they go in search of just their third win in 31 tests in India, and if groundsman Shiv Kumar’s confident assertion that the pitch won’t play as badly as the tourists’ fear proves correct, then all the better. “It’s a good total to play around with”, Vijay told reporters. The wicket is on the slower side and it is hard to score runs.
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Black Caps spinner Mitchell Santner’s assessment of where they found themselves heading into day two of the first test against India in Kanpur was about bang on. “From now on we can only build on the collapse suffered by India”, informed Santner.
