Boult strikes down India Kohli & Co. look down the barrel after another top-order flopshow
Wellington, Feb. 23: The Indian batsmen, caught between over-cautiousness and impetuosity, produced yet another inept batting performance to put New Zealand firmly on the driver’s seat at the end of third day’s play in the first Test here on Sunday.
At stumps, India reached 144 for 4 in their second innings as the toporder found Trent Boult’s (3/27 in 16 overs) high-quality swing bowling too hot to handle. India now trail New Zealand by 39 runs going into fourth day, which could well be the final day of this game unless Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari show the art of survival that was distinctly lacking in some of the other top-order batsmen.
Asked what kind of total can be defended in the fourth innings, senior spinner Ravichandran Ashwin remained non-committal. “I know to keep it simple and say this is defendable and this is not, (it) is pretty much how you would want me to present it, but it’s too much — like six sessions to go and we are not even at a stage where we can say what is a good score t defend,” said.
After New Zealand’s tail wagged big time to post a good first innings total of 348, the deficit of 183 understandably put India under severe pressure. If Cheteshwar Pujara (11 off
81 balls) paid for his ultradefensive mindset shouldering arms to an in-dipper, skipper Virat Kohli’s
(19 off 43 balls) split-second indiscretion became his undoing as he went for a needless pull-shot to a well-disguised o he short ball.
Mayank
Agarwal was impressive in one session and lost concentration in the second, ditto to what happened on the first day and was caught down the leg-side. The bowler on both the occasion was Boult, who successfully took over the job of tormenting the Indian batsmen from Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson.
Just like first innings, Pujara was leaving balls on length but at one stage, he was stuck on personal score of 6 for 28 consecutive balls. While leaving Jamieson from length was not an issue, Pujara did not account for Boult, shouldering arms a delivery that came in sharply.
“That’s the luxury of being a leftarmer and being able to use those subtle changes. The red balls here in New Zealand haven’t been swinging as much as they have in the past and if that’s not hapepning for me, then it comes down to changing angles and using different parts of the crease,” said Boult. —