Haven’t won a match since 930+ days. So, the pressure to win is very very high.
The Kiwis on the other hand, were on cruise mode with due performances from their seam team.
So, in a nutshell, I’ll describe each day, and then we read, what we learnt from this match.
Day 1:
Brendon Mccullum kept his losing record intact in terms of losing tosses, and India chose to bowl.
A surprising decision, but paid well in the end.
Ishant Sharma repeated his 2nd innings antics in the previous test with a 6 wicket haul again with Shami taking the rest. For the first time Indian seam line up took all 10 wickets in many years.
India batted for the post tea session making a 100/2 with Dhawan cruising for another century.
Advantage – INDIA
Day 2:
India, batted well almost for the entire day, with Dhawan missing out on a century.
The night watchman Ishant made a gutsy 26.
The tailenders contributed well for the team.(Zaheer – 22, Jadeja – 26)
Star of the day is Ajinkya Rahane who scored 118.
New Zealand seam line up got 9 on 10 wickets. not bad eh?
India got a lead of 235, Great..!!
New Zealand end the day on 24/1 trailing by 222 runs.
Advantage – INDIA
Day 3:
Mccullum and Watling rescued the Black caps after they were trailing 94/5
A partnership was forming, which was slowly rescuing them from an innings defeat, to avoiding a follow on, and then giving a decent target.
No good performances from the indians.
The bowlers were worn out.
For a while, Zaheer bowled a spell which was on the stump. Pure class!!
Advantage – 50-50
Day 4:
Mccullum and Watling made a partnership record and batted the entire day.
Phew!! What a record. 350+runs is not what you hear for the 6th wicket.
Then, James Neesham , the debutant scored a century. It’s like, whoever was batting from the home team played India like their toy.
The Bowlers like usual were a failure. it seemed they weren’t into the match and hoped it would all end like a bad dream.
Advantage – New Zealand
Day 5:
Mcculum completes his triple hundred with style thus joining the league of Sir Donald Bradman and Wally Hammond as the only players to have scored a double century and a triple century in consecutive Tests.
Stupendous achievement!
In that course, he broke Martin Crowe’s long time record since 1991 of scoring the highest runs on this ground (Previous was 299 in the year 1991-92)
The match was declared, and thus India was given a daunting target of 430+
It was obvious nothing could be done!
But, we batted decently with our future star, Virat kohli scoring a consolatory hundred for the visitors.
Result: MATCH DRAWN
8 Things we learnt from this match:
1) Brendon Mcculum is the man everyone must thank. he truly played a captain’s knock, didn’t he? He showed everyone how a aggressive batsman can slow down his game to great lengths just for his country.
2) Ishant Sharma is the most unpredictable Indian player ever.
3) Our batting seems to have finally found the swing, not only the top order, but also the tail enders contributing.
4) The Kiwis need more variety in the spin department. Expecting everything from their seamers can backfire anytime.
5) Rohit Sharma needs to find his zing back again, if he wants to cement his place in the team.
6) Our bowling looked like it was getting back to track, but the key to success always remains Consistency.
We need more of it.
7) Watling and Mcculum need to be given a special praise for their performance. To rescue your team from the losing stage to get them to a decent position is commendable.
8)The men in blue’s next task is England which is 5 months from now which means after 2 months,
India will have a record for not winning an away test for more than 1000 days!!