Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The wishes of sparse fans to see India dominate New Zealand didn’t pan out as per their expectations as under overcast skies, as New Zealand’s fast bowlers bowled out India for 46, their lowest Test score at home and third fewest overall.
With the bat, opener Devon Conway’s stroke-filled 91 on a pitch which eased out for batting helped New Zealand end day two’s play at 180/3 and lead India by 134 runs. With the ball hooping around, Matt Henry’s 5-15 and William O’Rourke’s 4-22 ensured New Zealand gained upper hand as the much-famed Indian batting line-up wilted due to lack of application under overcast skies.
Yashasvi Jaiswal managed to survive despite being beaten multiple times by the pacers. Captain Rohit Sharma was far from his fluent best and even survived an lbw appeal on umpire’s call off Henry. But in a bid to step out against a masterly Tim Southee, Rohit was castled through the gate while going for a big drive against the inswinger.
Virat Kohli’s surprising promotion to number three, with Shubman Gill out due to stiff neck, earned him vociferous chants from the crowd at his adopted home ground. But it was brought to a quick end when O’Rourke got extra bounce on a nip-backer which Kohli looked to defend, but it took the glove edge to forward leaping Glenn Phillips at leg-gully, as he departed for a nine-ball duck.
More trouble followed India as Sarfaraz Khan tried to counterattack with a forceful lofted drive, but ended up mis-hitting off Henry to Conway at mid-off, who stuck out his right hand and took a stunning catch. Rishabh Pant was a curious mix of caution and aggressiveness, including trying to reverse-sweep off Henry, before rain brought a halt to the proceedings.
After play resumed at 11:05am, Pant and Jaiswal got a boundary each to try and rebuild India’s innings. But O’Rourke struck again as Jaiswal went hard on the cut and was caught brilliantly by backward point diving low to his left.
One brought two for the pacer as KL Rahul, originally slotted to come at three, was strangled down leg for a six-ball duck off Henry, and was followed by Ravindra Jadeja being bizarrely too early into the flick and gave a high leading edge to backward point off Henry as New Zealand walked off the field as the happier side at lunch.
Post lunch, Henry struck on the very first ball by catching shoulder edge of Ravichandran Ashwin and the ball lobbed to gully. He then enticed Pant into tentative defence and edged to second slip. O’Rourke had Bumrah heaving to long leg, before Henry ended the Indian batting horror show by having Kuldeep Yadav caught at gully to get his 100th Test wicket.
After their captivating bowlers and brilliant fielders joined forces to blow away India, Conway was the main aggressor in a 67-run opening stand with captain Tom Latham. With bright sunshine slowly making way, Conway was superb in clipping and driving Mohammed Siraj for boundaries, followed by sweetly timing his fours off Jasprit Bumrah.
