Tough road ahead for NZ
Losing a warm-up match shouldn’t prompt panic, but the Black Caps’ 30-run loss against an Indian Board President’s XI certainly highlighted the challenging road ahead.
There were positives from yesterday’s match in Mumbai, highlighted by leftarm quick Trent Boult’s
5-38, but the status of allrounder Todd Astle is a concern ahead of the threematch ODI and Twenty20 series.
Astle, picked ahead of fellow leg-spinner Ish Sodhi for the tour of India, managed just three deliveries during the Indian side’s innings of
295-9, before pulling up lame and playing no further part in the match.
‘‘Todd injured his groin in his first over today. Obviously we’re going to have to assess it over night and if we need to do some further investigation tomorrow we will do,’’ Black Caps coach Mike Hesson said.
It’s unlikely he will play in today’s second warm-up match against the Indian Board President’s XI, and his long awaited ODI debut might not be achieved in Mumbai on Sunday, when the series officially starts.
Boult’s 5-38 stopped the home side from topping 300, with the highlight of their innings an 147-run partnership between openers Lokesh Rahul (68) and Prithvi Shaw (66).
A brisk 78 from No 3 Karun Nair was the highlight, before the Black Caps’ reply fell short, despite decent knocks from Tom Latham (59) and captain Kane Williamson (47). New Zealand, who won the toss and opted to bowl first, were eventually bowled out for 265 in 47.4 overs.
Boult and the New Zealand attack weren’t afraid to test the hosts out with some short stuff, something which didn’t go unnoticed by local media.
‘‘To come here and just try bowl line and length against some of the best players in the world is probably not the best recipe to getting them out,’’ Boult said when quizzed on the tactic.
‘‘Just a good opportunity to try a few things. I think they negated it very nicely, they played some very nice shots. Today, it probably wasn’t too successful but I think a lot of credit is due to their openers especially, they set a good platform for the rest of the batting lineup to propel off.’’
Latham, batting at No 5, fell in the 40th over after scoring 59 from 62 balls and the Black Caps collapsed from 201-5 to 265 all out as an increasing run rate piled the pressure on New Zealand’s lower order.
Colin de Grandhomme was the last man out, after scoring 33 from 22 balls, as Indian bowlers Jaydev Unadkat and Shahbaz Nadeem took 3-62 and 3-41 respectively.