A day after Washington Sundar blew away New Zealand, it was Santner’s turn to torment the Indian batters through a stunning exhibition of varying his pace, line and length, flight and dip to pick his maiden five-wicket haul in Tests by bowling relentlessly from the commentary box end.
He was also well-supported by Glenn Phillips’ 2-26 and helped by some rash shot selection and lack of gumption from the Indian batters, who have now conceded a big lead to New Zealand, especially with India slated to bat last on the pitch. With this, India are now staring at a possibility of losing a Test series at home for the first time since 2012, till they conjure up something extraordinary to save the game.
In the morning, Shubman Gill and Jaiswal started well with a 49-run stand for the second wicket. But once Gill was trapped lbw by a quicker delivery from Santner, the wickets started tumbling for India.
The crowd at Pune was stunned into silence when Virat Kohli went for a pre-mediated slog-sweep off Santner, but he missed the low full toss which went below his bat to hit the stumps, leaving the ace batter shell-shocked.
Phillips struck with his first over of part-time off-spin as Yashasvi Jaiswal came forward to defend, but gave an outside edge to first slip. Rishabh Pant was next to fall, after his pre-mediated pull off Phillips went past his bat to hit the stumps.
With chance to play sweep shot blocked, Sarfaraz Khan aimed to go inside-out against Santner, but miscued the shot to mid-off. Santner had another moment of absolute joy when he trapped Ravichandran Ashwin lbw with a quicker delivery and cap off a brilliant session for New Zealand to leave India in disarray yet again.
Jadeja could have been out first ball post lunch when short leg dived forward to take the catch off his inside edge, which New Zealand didn’t review and replays later showed a spike on the ultraedge. He then put pressure back on Santner with two boundaries, before dancing down the pitch to hit Ajaz Patel for two sixes.
But Santner got his fifth wicket of the innings by getting a length ball to spin in from outside off-stump and caught Jadeja on the crease by trapping him lbw. Jadeja went for the review, but replays showed ball clipping leg-stump, as he walked back for 38.
Despite Sundar smashing two fours and a six off Ajaz, Santner swiftly ended India’s innings by knocking over Akash Deep’s off-stump and trapping Jasprit Bumrah lbw to lead the team off the field in ascendancy.
Brief Scores: New Zealand 259 in 79.1 overs lead India 156 in 45.3 overs (Ravindra Jadeja 38, Yashasvi Jaiswal 30; Mitchell Santner 7-53, Glenn Phillips 2-26) by 103 runs
--IANS
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