It certainly didn’t present a potentially small target to chase for a first innings lead, given the quality of India’s spinners and a Green Park Stadium surface that will only get harder to bat on.
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In the historic 500th Test match for India, Ravindra Jadeja and Umesh Yadav were at the crease at the close of play on 16 and eight runs, respectively.
New Zealand’s Trent Boult, left, fields a shot from India’s Lokesh Rahul, right, during the first test in Kanpur, India, Thursday, Sept. 22.
Rahul’s past three innings across all formats had yielded two centuries and a 50, and the right-hander, who was chosen ahead of Shikhar Dhawan, dominated his 42-run stand with fellow opener Vijay.
Murali Vijay top-scored with 65, and Cheteshwar Pujara made 62, with the pair adding 112 runs for the second wicket before Santner had Pujara caught and bowled.
For India, Ajinkya Rahane (12) and Rohit Sharma (0) were at the crease when tea was called. Extras: (b5, lb1) 6. Trent Boult and Mitchell Santner have shared 6 wickets and rest three were equally shared by Ish Sodhi, Mark Craig and Neil Wagner.
Virat Kohli just couldn’t resist taking on a short-ball, and paid the ultimate price.
That included 4-11 off four overs against India in Nagpur when the hosts were felled for 79 in a 47-run loss.
Even captain Virat Kohli looked was out after punching two shots to the fence.
The opening duo of KL Rahul and Murali Vijay went all guns blazing with the former being more aggressive in his approach.
Santner also emphasised that varying the pace and the length of the ball was important when the rival team had good partnerships going. But I guess there were a couple of key moments but we stuck to our plans reasonably well.to be in not a bad position. “Pitch was pretty flat to start with but we’re lucky to get a few wickets here and there to pull it back”, was how he reacted after the day’s play. Especially, after they won the toss and batted first.
“The wicket of Kohli was a big wicket but down to Jadeja at nine they have got a very good batting line-up”. While Vijay played the waiting game and was content in rotating the strike, it was surprisingly Pujara who raced towards his runs. Both batsmen got to their respective fifties in the second session too and at that stage it looked like a score of 400, if not more, was definitely on the cards for India.
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Mitchell Santner had a good outing in India the last time he visited the country. After the wicket of Rohit, only R Ashwin provide resistance and played positive cricket.
