Matt Henry and William O’Rourke picked nine wickets collectively to bowl out India for just 46 on day two of first Test at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday. With this, India have now recorded their lowest total at home and third lowest Test score overall. This was the first time in 91 years (since India’s first home Test in 1931) that they scored less than 50 in an innings. Under overcast condition, Henry exhibited great control on line and length to pick 5-15 and also reached the landmark of 100 Test wickets. O’Rourke, playing in his first Test in India, made a fantastic impression with his awkward bounce and mixing of lengths to pick 4-22 while veteran pacer Tim Southee took a scalp.
For India, right from them electing to bat first amidst downpour threats, things backfired spectacularly. With no grass on the pitch, they picked three spinners for the first time in this season, with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj being the only pacers.
But with conditions heavily favouring an accurate New Zealand bowling line-up and backed up brilliantly by their fielders, India didn’t show the desired batting application to grind it out against swing or seam and fell without doing much. Only Rishabh Pant (20) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (13) reached double figures in a sorry Indian batting show laced with five ducks.
Captain Rohit Sharma was far from his fluent best and even survived an lbw appeal on umpire’s call off Matt Henry. But in a bid to step out against a masterly Tim Southee, Rohit was castled through the gate while going for a big drive against the inswinger.
Virat Kohli’s surprising promotion to number three, after Shubman Gill was ruled out due to neck stiffness, earned him vociferous chants from the sparse crowd at his adopted home ground.
But it was brought to a quick end when O’Rourke got extra bounce on a nip-backer which Kohli looked to defend, but it took the glove edge to forward leaping Glenn Phillips at leg-gully, as he departed for a nine-ball duck.
More trouble followed India as Sarfaraz Khan tried to counterattack with a forceful lofted drive, but ended up mis-hitting off Henry to Devon Conway at mid-off, who stuck out his right hand and took a stunning catch. Pant was a curious mix of caution and aggressiveness, including trying to reverse-sweep off Henry, before rain brought a halt to the proceedings.
After play resumed at 11:05am, Pant and Jaiswal got a boundary each to try and rebuild India’s innings. But O’Rourke struck again as Jaiswal went hard on the cut and was caught brilliantly by backward point diving low to his left.
One brought two for the pacer as he strangled KL Rahul, supposed to bat at three, down leg for a six-ball duck, and was followed by Ravindra Jadeja being bizarrely too early into the flick and gave a high leading edge to backward point off Henry as New Zealand walked off the field as the happier side at lunch.
Post lunch, Henry struck on the very first ball by catching shoulder edge of Ravichandran Ashwin and the ball lobbed to gully. He then enticed Pant into tentative defence and edged to second slip. O’Rourke had Bumrah heaving to long leg, before Henry ended the Indian batting horror show by having Kuldeep Yadav caught at gully to cap off a brilliant time for New Zealand with the red cherry.
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