In IND vs NZ Day 2 of the 2nd Test match, after Santner’s seven wickets, captain Latham’s half-century put New Zealand ahead in the match after bowling out India for 153, New Zealand has scored 198 runs at the loss of five wickets.
IND vs NZ Day 2 of 2nd Test, New Zealand gets ahead in the game with Santner’s spin and Latham’s knock
On the second day of IND vs NZ, the Pune Test, New Zealand’s team has put itself ahead in the match by performing brilliantly. On the second day, due to Mitchell Santner’s brilliant bowling, New Zealand’s team was able to take a big lead of 103 runs by bowling out India for just 156 runs. Santner gave the best performance in his Test career, taking seven wickets. This is the first time he opened his hands in a Test. After this, Tom Latham’s half-century innings gave them a lead of 301 runs.
However, the Indian team’s troubles did not end there. With a lead of 103 runs, when the New Zealand batsmen came to bat in the third innings, they were in a different mood. He knew that he had got a good lead on this pitch and he started batting aggressively. The result was that his sweep and reverse sweep strategy troubled the Indian bowlers.
New Zealand batsmen scored a total of 60 runs in this innings through sweep and reverse sweep. Captain Latham scored a lot of runs with this strategy, scoring 29 runs and 133 runs in 86 balls in his innings. By the end of the day’s play, New Zealand had scored 198 runs at the loss of five wickets and they had a mountain-like lead of 301 runs.
On the first day, with the help of Washington Sundar’s brilliant bowling (seven wickets), India was successful in bowling out New Zealand for 259. After this, India scored 16 runs while losing Rohit Sharma’s wicket.
When the second day’s play started, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal batted well for the first half hour and made a partnership of 49 runs. However, after this, Santner got Gill out LBW and this is where the fall of wickets started. After this, in his very next over, Santner bowled Virat Kohli. However, the ball on which Kohli was bowled was a low full-toss and he got bowled in an attempt to sweep it half-heartedly.
After Kohli returned to the pavilion, the Indian team was completely on the back foot. After this, the batsmen kept coming and going, and in the midst of all this, Washington and Ravindra Jadeja played innings of 18 and 38 runs respectively, due to which India was successful in bringing the lead to around 100 runs.
India has also chased 387 runs in its Test cricket history on home soil, but chasing more than 300 runs on this pitch seems extremely difficult. New Zealand batsmen had the option to hit shots aggressively, as they already had a good lead.
New Zealand lost a total of five wickets in the second innings, out of which Sundar took four and R Ashwin took one wicket. They still have five batsmen left. Now on the third day, India would like to get New Zealand all out as soon as possible.
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