India vs New Zealand 2024/25, IND vs NZ 2nd Test Match Report, October 24 – 28, 2024

Right from the first over, the threat of the pitch was writ large. Three balls from Santner behaved differently from the same spot: one turned less than expected, one angled in to nearly get Shubman Gill lbw and one turned big part the outside edge. Santner was all over India from that moment on, bowling through the session for figures of 14-1-34-4. It took persistence and patience to get the first wicket, Gill in the 11th over of the day, but newer batters found it incredibly hard to start on this pitch.

Once Virat Kohli missed a full toss to be bowled for 1, Tom Latham brought Phillips on for two left-hand batters, whom he duly went on to get, one with the turn and one with a ball that went straight on and stayed low.

It was in the first hour that New Zealand needed to keep believing. They kept attacking fields despite Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s penchant for the big hits. Known of late to respond to such situations with counterattack, India were itching to attack, but the bowling from Santner was good enough to deny them that. Gill managed to hit Tim Southee for a six, but he had to charge at the fast bowler for that. Jaiswal had to play the reverse-sweep to get a boundary.

Eventually, Santner was rewarded for the hard work when he had an umpire’s call on an lbw go his way. For Gill, this was almost a repeat of the chance in the first over. As the 15 seconds on the DRS timer lapsed, the crowd broke into a big cheer for the arrival of Kohli. The joy for them was short-lived as Kohli soon missed a full toss, which he tried to mow to square leg.

By now the effect of the roller was wearing off. Batters were shanking even full balls or those that they got close to by using their feet. The ones that didn’t turn created further doubt. As it tends to happen at such times, fielders were everywhere, a hard sweep went straight into the shin of short leg, a short ball stopped and turned, and the pressure kept mounting.

It took Phillips four balls to turn one and take Jaiswal’s edge to slip. Rishabh Pant, who had been kept quiet with in-out fields, then went to pull one that was only slightly short of a length. The ball stayed low and bowled him, drawing an inaudible invective that might end up hitting Pant in the wallet.

Sarfaraz Khan, who showed proficiency against spin in Bengaluru, soon found out that the margin for error was little here. If you had to attack, you needed rank bad balls. He tried to go inside-out to a really full ball, and it still spooned just over cover. His sweep was blocked, and brought him just singles. Eventually he tried to the clear the deepish mid-off without getting to the pitch of the ball, a reminder of Phillips’ dismissal on day one. A shooter then did R Ashwin in, the first time Santner went past three wickets in a Test innings.

India were now left looking at Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar to rescue them.