26 October,2024 07:35 AM IST | Pune | R Kaushik
NZ players celebrate their win over India after Ajaz Patel dismisses Ravindra Jadeja (right) on Saturday. Pics/PTI
To say that the result was a foregone conclusion after Day Two at the MCA International Stadium might be an exaggeration because Test cricket is replete with tales of glorious fightbacks. But India needed a mini-miracle after falling so far behind in the second Test against New Zealand, and miracles of any nature are anything but commonplace.
With Mitchell Santner again in the forefront, New Zealand ground out an excellent 113-run win on Saturday's Day Three, thereby taking a winning 2-0 lead in the three-Test series. Tom Latham's side didn't just become the first New Zealand outfit to win a Test series in India, it also became the first team since Alastair Cook's England in 2012-13 to secure a positive series result in a country where winning even Test matches for away teams is extremely difficult. India's proud record of 18 successive series triumphs came to a juddering halt, and while all good things in life do come to an end at some stage, the manner of this defeat in particular will hurt skipper Rohit Sharma massively.
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For a brief while when Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill were taking the fight to the Kiwis, the biggest crowd of the match - an impressive 28,895 - allowed itself to hope for the best. Set a target of 359 once Ravindra Jadeja took three wickets in the morning to restrict New Zealand, overnight 198 for five, to 255 in their second innings, India blazed away to 96 for the loss of Rohit's wicket in 15 overs when Gill was caught at slip off Santner.
India have had three batting implosions before Saturday in this series alone, and a fourth wasn't long in coming. Santner, who had picked up a career-best seven for 53 just the previous day, got on a roll; he didn't do anything fancy, but because the ball was either going straight through or turning from the same spot, he kept attacking the stumps and bringing them into play. Like in the first dig, the rewards came quickly as India surrendered six for 71 between Gill's dismissal and the fall of the promoted Washington Sundar to find themselves on the ropes at 167 for seven before eventually being bowled out for 245.
Like 24 hours earlier, Santner tested both edges and the pads and finished with a six-for, match figures of 13 for 157 earning him the Player of the Match award. His was a stunning exhibition of how to bowl on a helpful surface; maybe the absence of a bursting repertoire of tricks worked to his advantage, after all.
India's second innings was about Jaiswal, mainly. The young left-hander, who completed 1,000 home Test runs for the calendar year, was wonderfully positive without being reckless, picking the right balls to hit, taking a leaf from the Kiwi batters and playing the sweep and generally meaning business. But apart from Gill and Jadeja late in the piece when it was all over bar the shouting, he found little support from his colleagues, which is why India head to Mumbai for the final Test from next Friday with a real headache to address.
Brief scores
NZ 259 & 255 (T Latham 86, G Phillips 48', T Blundell 41; W Sundar 4-56, R Jadeja 3-72, R Ashwin 2-97) beat India 156 & 245 (Y Jaiswal 77, R Jadeja 42; M Santner 6-104, A Patel 2-43) by 113 runs
