Pujara, Rahane rebuild Indian innings against New Zealand

Reduced to 91/5, India were rescued by Rohit and Saha, who had scored an unbeaten half-century in the first innings as well.

With every run diminishing valuable time on a pitch only expected to become more hard to bat on, New Zealand wanted to wrap up the Indian innings quickly. Bhuveneshwar accounted for Martin Guptill, Henry Nicholls, Ross Taylor, Mitchell Santner and Matt Henry in a spell of 10 overs and at one stage he was in for a hat-trick.

That the wicket was under cover for a long time gave New Zealand a slight advantage after India skipper Virat Kohli opted to bat upon winning the toss.

In reply to India’s first innings total of 316, New Zealand were still trailing by 231 runs when rain stopped play with 40 minutes to go for the scheduled tea break.

“That is something we have to improve on to stay in this Test, or in this series even, going forward”. Henry (3-35) struck in his very first over castling Shikhar Dhawan (1) leaving India in early trouble. After playing the entire second session with great discipline and appearing to cash in on their hard labour, Pujara fell to a bad shot that brought an end to the 141-run fourth-wicket partnership.

So as expected, Gautam Gambhir was left out of the side and Shikhar Dhawan replaced KL Rahul.

For the in-form Pujara, it was his third half-century from as many innings but a lapse in concentration ended his patient innings for 87 that came off 219 deliveries and was studded with 17 hits to the fence. This was, of course, preceded by 166, 31 and 259* in the Duleep Trophy.

India are in the gainer’s side as they end their third day of second Test with New Zealand. Only when experienced pacer Tim Southee was ruled out due to injury did Henry catch a flight to the subcontinent. Upon riveting back to three pacers in Kolkata, Henry was picked above Bracewell despite the latter being a regular member of New Zealand’s Test squads recently.

Despite the patchy batting performance, the hosts look set to go 2-0 up in the three-match series, a result that would also propel them to the top of the ICC Test rankings.

Every bowler has an individual plan of how he will skin the cat and the way Boult bowled to him was fantastic and he eventually got the result.

And if you saw with the second new ball, that bouncer which Trent Boult bowled to Wriddhiman Saha – because of the crack it deviated.