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India power ahead after NZ succumb to Jadeja and Ashwin
- Updated: September 24, 2016
India 318 and 159 for 1 (Vijay 64*, Pujara 50*) lead New Zealand 262 (Williamson 75, Latham 58, Jadeja 5-73, Ashwin 4-93) by 215 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details
A roughly even contest through its first six completed sessions, the Green Park Test swung emphatically India’s way after lunch on day three, as Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin ran through New Zealand to earn India a 56-run first-innings lead. By stumps, they had swelled this to 215 thanks to unbeaten half-centuries from M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara, who put on their second century stand of the match.
India, well ahead at tea, pulled away rapidly thereafter. With Ish Sodhi and Mark Craig serving up a feast of short balls, Vijay and Pujara hit seven fours in the first three overs of the final session. Then, after four relatively quiet overs, Vijay played two of the shots of the match, off Mitchell Santner, an inside-out drive to the left of extra-cover and a late cut with bat meeting ball inches in front of off stump.
By the end of the day, India’s run-rate had slowed to normal Test-match proportions, but the economy rates of Craig (4.36) and Sodhi (4.14) told a story. On a pitch where Ashwin and Jadeja were causing all kinds of problems, India’s batsmen had shone an unforgiving light on the inadequacies of New Zealand’s spinners.
New Zealand’s only wicket came in the last over before tea, when KL Rahul late-cut Sodhi straight into slip’s hands. As he had done in the first innings, Rahul had shown plenty of attacking enterprise – in this instance using sweeps, reverse-sweeps and lofted drives to move along at a 70-plus strike rate – before falling in the 30s.
Wickets often fall in clusters in India. One brings many. There were two such clusters in New Zealand’s innings. First, they lost three wickets in 23 balls at the start of the morning session. After lunch, even more damagingly, they lost their last five in the space of 29 balls, for the addition of only seven runs. In the process, Ravindra Jadeja picked up his fifth five-wicket haul in Tests, and R Ashwin swelled his Test wicket count from 193 to 197.
The two teams’ first innings almost mirrored each other. India had gone from 154 for 1 to 318 all out. New Zealand had lost their second wicket with their score 159. The …
