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Cricket PlayersInd vs NZ, 1st Test: Middle-order wobble continues but India end Day 1 on top
Debutant Shreyas Iyer shines with an unbeaten 75 but Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara’s woes with the bat remain
At around 1:40 PM on Thursday, a roar went up the Green Park Stadium. The flat line on the giant screen as the ball passed Ajinkya Rahane's bat gave the Indian stand-in skipper a lifeline, and the on-field decision by the usually immaculate Nitin Menon was overturned.
At 1:41 PM, Green Park reverberated again. This time though, the sound was a collective gasp. Rahane went to cut a back of length ball in the fourth stump channel and ended up chopping it on his stumps, in part due to low bounce. That fleeting minute served as a microcosm of Rahane's blow-hot-blow-cold form.
A day before this Test, Rahane tried his best in putting up a brave face as questions were asked about his personal form. "Contribution doesn't always mean scoring hundreds. Sometimes, 40s, 50s, and 60s are good enough. I am happy to contribute to team's cause," he had said.
Coming into the series on the back of four T20 half centuries in his last five Syed Mushtaq Ali games, Rahane should have been in a decent headspace, mindful nevertheless of his fast-ending tether. He made a memorable ton in Melbourne Test last December, but managed just two fifties thereafter. Before the Kanpur Test, his average this year read a sorry 19.57 from 11 matches.
Shubman Gill had given India a bright start to the match, hitting a typically sleek 52 before his well-documented weakness—a gap between his pad and bat—was exploited by Kyle Jamieson. Mayank Agarwal had already departed, off a Jamieson delivery that took his outside edge. So now India’s two struggling Test stalwarts—Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara came together.
Rahane opened his account with a classic backfoot punch for four off Jamieson. Left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel kept a slip, short leg, short cover and brought mid-on and mid-off up, and Rahane responded with an inside-out four, and followed it up with an across the line swipe to the fence that he manufactured after hopping down the track and converting a length ball into a full toss. He was looking in perfectly good form.
Pujara and he added 24 runs in 7.4 overs before Jamieson struck again. Pujara, hounded by relentless inquisition over his strike rate, took two hours and 88 balls for his 26 runs on a track that offered little to the bowlers except some unpredictable bounce.
Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson kept up the pressure with a constant short-leg and a short mid-wicket, and while Pujara repeatedly stepped out to spinners, those adventures fetched precious little. He faced 64 balls from spinners, and according to CricViz data, played only five false shots. On 13 occasions he attempted an attacking shot against spin, primarily dancing down the track, but 11 of those deliveries were dots. In all, six runs, including a solitary four, came from his forays down the wicket. This is in sharp contrast to Pujara's happy days in Indian conditions where he would repeatedly find gaps after stepping out.
Pujara was then softened up by a barrage of short balls from Jamieson, before Tim Southee was introduced into the attack. Southee induced an outside edge on his fourth ball, angling one in that straightened after pitching. Pujara's typical short front foot stride couldn't cover for the movement enough, and the resultant edge was caught by wicketkeeper Tom Blundell.
Again, Pujara getting out after getting in is no longer an anomaly. In his last 10 innings before this Test, Pujara entered double figures on five occasions, but failed to nail a century despite crossing fifty twice. His last Test ton came almost three years back, in January 2019.
Like Rahane, the chorus against Pujara's form has been building up for a while now.
Iyer to the rescue
Shreyas Iyer became the country's 303rd male Test cricketer earlier in the day when batting great Sunil Gavaskar presented him his India cap and the Mumbai batter now came to the rescue with the innings of the day, stitching an unbeaten 114-run partnership with Ravindra Jadeja as the hosts ended the day on 258/4.
Iyer's first runs in Test cricket came via a false shot, an ungainly across the line hoick to Patel that just about eluded Williamson at mid-off, but as his innings progressed, he displayed his range. A naturally aggressive batter with a distinct flair, Iyer showed the intelligence to rein in after his lucky escape without getting bogged down by stifling field placements and the general discipline of Kiwi bowlers.
An inside-out four off Patel, followed by a pull later in the over hinted at his positive approach, and shots began to flow freely once he assessed the wicket. Iyer's judgment of length—against pace and spin—was immaculate, and he scored on either side of the wicket off both feet.
Jadeja, who gave another testimony of his growing prowess as a reliable batter, produced an unbeaten fifty. The left-hander was never troubled by the New Zealand attack and struck six boundaries off the hundred balls he faced on the day.
