Mumbai flay NZ spinners on 402-run day

Mumbai 431 for 5 (Yadav 103, Pawar 100, Lad 86*) lead New Zealanders 324 for 7 dec (Latham 55, Williamson 50) by 107 runsScorecard

Amit Pagnis did it to Shane Warne in 1998; Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma traumatised Jason Krejza in 2008; Nathan Hauritz received a rude welcome from Ajinkya Rahane in 2010. On Saturday Suryakumar Yadav, Kaustubh Pawar, Siddhesh Lad, Armaan Jaffer and Aditya Tare continued the tradition of Indian domestic batsmen softening up the opposition spinners in their tour game. Rohit, himself a part of the Test squad now, failed to press claim for a slot in the XI, falling for 18 in an ungainly manner, but his Mumbai team-mates did a job for the India Test side by making New Zealanders’ three frontline spinners toil for 51 overs for 263 runs and just three wickets. A whopping 402 runs came in the day. Mumbai’s coach Chandrakant Pandit didn’t brag too much, but cheekily said he hoped the India team would be happy that a state side had tested the visiting spinners.

Doug Bracewell, though, said the New Zealanders weren’t too concerned about their performance, although there were lessons to be learnt. A lot of it was down to the flatness of the Feroz Shah Kotla pitch. New Zealanders’ spinners, though, seemed to be playing for the conditions expected in the Tests rather than trying to beat batsmen in the air on an unresponsive track. Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner and offspinner Mark Craig, in particular, kept bowling quick and flat, which works on the kind of raging turners that South Africa were given in India’s last home season. Legspinner Ish Sodhi was the only one who created regular problems.

Be that as it may, the Mumbai batsmen matched the intent shown by …

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