On Thursday, fans at the Chinnaswamy cricket stadium were given a big shock as the famed Indian batting lineup crashed out for a mere 46 runs. The lowest total for an Indian team at home in tests. With the first day rained out, on day 2, Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bat in the overcast conditions of Bangalore. The buoyant crowd hoping to watch a great Indian batting performance were stunned into silence as the Indian captain was soon castled by Southee for a mere 2 runs.
The crowds disappointment then turned into disbelief as India’s premier batsman Virat Kohli followed with a duck to his name. Kohli seemed visibly stunned by the bounce, as Phillips came up with a brilliant catch. Sarfaraz Khan who had been given a chance to cement his position, walked in, in the place of the unfit Shubhman Gill. Khan did no favours to his selection as he instantly walked back on a duck as well, out to a tame purposeless shot.
Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal tried to stitch together a stand, but the latter fell to a wild slash on the off side. Jaiswal had been in fantastic form and losing his wicket put a complete dampener on India’s hopes for a revival. KL Rahul was next with a tame, nothing shot, the fourth Indian duck of the day. Surprised by the bounce Jadeja was next to give away his wicket. The fifth duck of the day. The entire Indian batting order was sitting in the pavilion, the score 34 for six.
The rest of the tail could only muster 12 more runs, Rishabh Pant the top scorer with 20. By the end of the day New Zealand had already taken a lead of 134 runs, sitting strong at 180/3. Conway alone scoring 91. The same pitch that seemed a minefield to the Indian batters looked rather tame when the New Zealanders came out to bat. All three New Zealand wickets were taken by spinners, as the Indian pacers went wicketless.
Among the New Zealand bowlers the trio of Southee with 1 wicket, Henry with 5 and O’Rourke with 4 absolutely destroyed the Indian batting. So much so that the black caps did not even need to use a fourth bowling option, wrapping up the innings in 31 overs. The famed Indian lineup fell like ninepins, unable to negotiate the seam and bounce extracted by the New Zealander pacers.
With a healthy lead in the bag and enough wickets in hand, the Black Caps will now aim to rack up a big lead and send out the Indians to bat again. Gambhir and his wards have to come up with a quick strategy on day 3 to trigger a big batting collapse or watch the match completely slip away. The chances to reach a WTC final are still high, but this outing is fast turning into a complete nightmare for the men in blue.
