With the opening day washed out and rain forecast for both Thursday and Friday, and possibly into the weekend, the toss for the first Test between India and New Zealand was always going to be crucial. And so dominant have India been in their own conditions over the past decade – the last series loss was to England way back in 2012-13 – that it’s hard to quibble with the decisions the think-tank takes.
But whichever way you slice it, what happened on Thursday morning at 8:45 am was quite bizarre. With cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal, the weather was going to be more pivotal than usual in deciding what to do after the toss. The covers had been on for the best part of three days, and there was always likely to be plenty of moisture in the pitch. In such a scenario, and given how well India’s pace bowlers have performed in recent times, the logical decision was to bowl first on winning the toss.
Instead, India sought to drive home some sort of message by batting first, and picking three specialist spinners while leaving out Akash Deep. Were they trying to prepare for seam-friendly conditions in a day-night Test in Australia later this year? Over-confidence? Whatever the reason, it backfired spectacularly. New Zealand’s pace trio of Tim Southee, Matt Henry and William O’Rourke needed just 31.2 overs to skittle India for 46, their lowest total at home in 90 years of Test cricket.
It wasn’t quite the 36 all out in Adelaide in 2020, or the dismal slide to 42 at Lord’s in 1974, but had Tom Blundell not dropped Rishabh Pant when he had made just 7, it could well have been far worse. Pant’s 20 was comfortably the highest score of the innings, with Yashasvi Jaiswal the only other batter to make it to double figures.
Batters have their techniques to combat the swinging ball, predominantly based on watching the bowler’s hand prior to release. But on a pitch laden with moisture, as the Chinnaswamy Stadium deck was, it’s the seam movement that they have to handle. And when a bowler hits the pitch as hard as the 6’4”-inch O’Rourke, it’s almost impossible to tell which way the ball will deviate or how much.
The die was cast when Rohit Sharma gave Southee the charge. New Zealand’s seniormost player’s place in the side had come under scrutiny in recent times, but the delivery that he snaked past Rohit’s attacking stroke was straight out of his glory years. In fact, it could have been bowled at Eden Park at Auckland.
After that, it was a procession. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, local heroes both, didn’t trouble the scorers, caught in the leg-side cordon, while Sarfaraz Khan managed a three-ball duck after trying to hit his way out of trouble. A subdued Jaiswal slapped one to point, and there were blobs for Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. That the third-highest score was Mohammed Siraj’s 4 not out said it all really.
Rohit and his team have enough credit in the bank, especially in Test cricket, for this to be viewed as a mere aberration. But with a place in the World Test Championship final next June still up for grabs, India can’t afford many more such missteps.
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