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New Zealand collapse against Ashwin’s guile
- Updated: October 10, 2016
Tea New Zealand 216 for 6 (Neesham 37*, Santner 3*, Ashwin 4-65) trail India 557 for 5 dec by 341 runsLive scorecard and ball- by-ball details
Four wickets from R Ashwin in a guileful spell either side of lunch dismantled New Zealand’s top order after Martin Guptill and Tom Latham had given them a strong start in response to India’s mountainous first-innings total. Guptill and Latham put on 118 for the first wicket before Ashwin struck to begin a collapse in which New Zealand lost five wickets for 30 runs. A 53-run sixth-wicket partnership kept India at bay for 14.5 overs, but they weren’t to be denied for too long, as Ravindra Jadeja produced turn and bounce to have BJ Watling caught at slip. At tea, New Zealand were 216 for 6, trailing by 341, with James Neesham on 37 and Mitchell Santner on 6.
On the least helpful pitch of the series, Ashwin’s wickets came largely through his deception in the air, which constantly disrupted the batsmen’s reading of line and length. For the third time in as many innings, he dismissed Kane Williamson, New Zealand’s best batsman. Again Williamson went on the back foot to a good-length ball, tempted into cutting by the line wide of off stump. The ball didn’t turn as much as the one that bowled him in the first innings in Kanpur, but it turned enough, with extra bounce, to cramp him and force him to chop on.
Ross Taylor was next to go, undone yet again by his technique of playing across the line while defending. The ball dipped and pitched shorter than Taylor had expected, which may not have caused him too much of a problem had his bat-swing had come straight down the line of the ball. Instead, as is often the case, it came down from gully towards wide mid-on, causing him to edge to slip.
Then came a bit of bad luck for Guptill, who, playing his first innings of any significance in the series, was caught out of his crease at the non-striker’s end when Ashwin deflected a straight drive from Luke Ronchi onto the stumps. Having played an unwitting …
