Regain No 1 rank
There were 15 lbw dismissals in this Test, the most in a Test in India. The previous highest was 13, against SA in Ahmedabad in 1996. Only five of the lbw here dismissals were against spinners. The Eden Gardens pitch has always had something in it for the pacers. But this Test was special. Of the 40 wickets that fell, 26 went to pacers, the second highest at this ground. Bhuvneshwar Kumar also took his first five-wicket innings haul in India. VIRAT KOHLI, on the need to keep the crowd engaged in on his life. In the first over after lunch, he was done in by the dip of R Ashwin. Henry Nicholls stitched a 49-run partnership before edging Ravindra Jadeja to slip. By the time Ross Taylor fell to Ashwin, hopes of an early finish had brightened.
Despite producing one of the best innings of the series, Latham was bound to run out of patience once. Ashwin’s drift was an entrapment, inviting him to drive but spinning viciously to take a faint edge that Saha pouched superbly.
Shami too kept his end of the deal. With the pitch showing signs of slowing down, Jadeja and Ashwin were primed for long spells. But Kohli hardly adheres to convention. He brought Shami from the clubhouse end for a six-over spell. Having already sent Santner back, Shami beat BJ Watling’s outer edge to shatter off-stump. Kohli then put Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in charge of the bowling. That too worked like a charm. The next two wickets took a while coming but with the right bowlers at their disposal, India were never short on patience. After MS Dhoni, Farokh Engineer and Dilawar Hussain, Wriddhiman Saha became the fourth India wicket-keeper to score two fifties in a Test. Saha also joins VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Bapu Nadkarni to make at least two unbeaten fifties in the same Test. Tom Latham’s 74 was the only heartening feature of New Zealand’s second innings. Two Tests have gone without any century scored. The highest individual score so far has been Pujara’s 87 in the first innings of this Test. He is the top-scorer in both Tests.
They like to see exciting cricket and we have to provide it. You have to interact with them, make sure they are a part of the whole thing and feed off their energy. It happens in limited overs, so why not in Tests?