If the 46 all out in Bengaluru was partially excusable, in that the conditions were heavily skewed in the visiting bowlers’ favour, the capitulation in Pune, 156 all out, rendered India’s batting naked. New Zealand’s merry pair of spinners exposed four glaring truths. A) The fatalism and fallibility of India’s batsmen against modest spinners, their technical and temperamental letdown. B) The delusional recklessness that is disguised as aggressive batting. C) The woeful uncertainty of their tactics, whether to attack, counterattack or defend. D) The turning ball torments them as much as the moving ball.
At the heart of the incompetence is the ghoulish fear of the turning ball. Some of the batsmen were clumsy, some careless. Even though the 22-yarder was challenging, and not unplayable, none of the top seven could claim that they got a ripper, or a grubber.
Santner had forewarned Gill. In the second over of the day, he had survived a close lbw shout, pushing his front leg out and defending with the bat beside the leg. It’s a dangerous method on a surface with ample natural variation, besides saying he was uncertain of which way the ball was turning. He repeated the mistake half an hour later, the sequence was identical, only that this time the umpire reckoned it was hitting the leg-stump. Great batsmen learn, he has yet to.
But so bizarre was the day that even the greatest Indian batsman of this era discovered a silly route to self-destruction. Virat Kohli shaped to sweep Mitchell Santner out of the stadium, but missed an utterly delicious low full toss that he could have deposited anywhere else in the stadium. The innings, match and series on the line, Kohli’s wisdom deserted him.
The younger generation, ready to inherit the mantle from him, showed they are not yet ready for receiving the baton. Yashasvi Jaiswal thrust uncertainly at a Glenn Phillips ball just outside the off-stump and managed a nick to the slip. Often, his movements were precise and definite, but here his focus snapped and assumed the form of an indecisive prod. Risbhabh swung blindly at a flat Phillips ball and was bowled. The ball kept a trifle low, but the stroke was hideous.
India’s Virat Kohli being bowled by New Zealand’s Mitchell Santner on the second day of the second test cricket match between India and New Zealand, at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, in Pune. (PTI)
Needed: a defensive-minded batsman
This is where a defensive-minded batsman (with a resolute defence certainly) would have sussed the pressure and wore the spinners into submission. But India no longer possessed someone of that disposition, and more chaos ensued. Sarfaraz, having crunched a four, mishit to mid-on, the bat again flipping in his hands at the point of contact with the ball. At 95 for six, the knife was being twisted into the torso. But for frantic shots from Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, India’s embarrassment would have been cruder.
More shocking than their implosion was that it didn’t leave the viewers in mute shock. Rather an affirmation that India’s batsmen can get befuddled at the sight of dust bowls. India did beat England a few months ago, but their spinners still bagged 60 wickets in five games. Australia’s tweakers grabbed 45 last year in a country where Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidharan averaged 43.11 and 45.45. It’s not the turner tactic that the team management have to rethink, but the competence levels of their chosen batsmen.
No magic balls were needed
It didn’t need any magic balls either. To not get overawed was the staunchest challenge the pitch posed to the New Zealand spinners. To not imagine the dream ball, to not be impatient, but to gnaw at the Indian batsmen, to strangle them, to second-guess them and seduce them into erring. The utility pair of Phillips and Santner performed exactly that. Neither belong to the spin elites of their time, more bit-part acts New Zealand deploy on turners because they don’t possess a quality, all-condition spinner. Daniel Vettori, apart, high-calibre spinners had been a scarce proposition in their country.
But the pair put on a studious spell, where they induced mistakes with unflagging discipline. Santner shrewdly alternated his lengths and pace; Phillips pounded the spinners’ good length area. Natural variations from the reeling surface helped. Some deliveries of Phillips spun straight on. Some cut back into the right handers. Some of Santner’s deliveries flew low, like the one that pinged Ravichandran Ashwin adjacent to the stumps. Some snapped away, even the grip suggested the ball was breaking the other way. Among spinners in recent times that had tormented India on baked turners, the duo could have been the most unusual suspects. Inversely, they exposed the mounting vulnerabilities of India’s batsmen against spinners on turning wickets.
Adding kerosine into the fire, New Zealand’s batsmen illustrated how to milk runs on the surface. It had eased up, fewer balls misbehaved, but they went about the task of extending their domination without any fuss. The foundation of their game was simple defence, smart manipulation of gaps and sensible batting. That was perhaps the fifth and harshest truth they learned on Pune Day 2. That New Zealand’s batsmen were better equipped to deal with the mechanics of the turning ball. Rohit Sharma and Co have one shot at proving these are not truths.
India’s Virat Kohli being bowled by New Zealand’s Mitchell Santner on the second day of the second test cricket match between India and New Zealand, at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, in Pune. (PTI)
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