Devon Conway’s unbeaten 47 helped New Zealand to a steady start in the opening session of the second Test against India in Pune. In a session where there was little trouble for the batters, the visitors took a measured approach and went to Lunch at 92 for 2.
New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat, and had come in with one forced change – Matt Henry sitting out with a glute niggle and making way for Mitchell Santner. India, on the other hand, made three swaps – Kuldeep Yadav, KL Rahul and Mohammed Siraj making way for Washington Sundar, Shubman Gill and Akash Deep.
While spin was introduced quite early in the innings, and remained in operation for most parts of the morning session, New Zealand managed to find some early boundaries despite adopting a conservative approach. Akash Deep strayed slightly in line, at times even found the outside edge but was hit for three boundaries in his first two overs.
Even as there was marginal movement on offer, spin was introduced as early as the eighth over of the day, and R Ashwin struck immediately. The ball spun sharply and hit Tom Latham’s pads, beating the outside edge of his bat. In the next over, Washington Sundar was introduced from the other end and the two offspinners operated at high pace against the left-right combination of Conway and Will Young.
There was a bit of turn on offer for the spinners whenever they slowed down their pace significantly, but they largely preferred to operate at an average of early to mid 90kmph, looking to hurry the batters with the sliders. Both the spinners managed to beat the outside edge of the batters on a number of occasions, but there weren’t ample appeals.
However, with both the batters being quick to take advantage of the error in lines and the high pace which allowed them to work the ball around in gaps, the scoreboard was moving at a reasonable pace even when there wasn’t any aggressive intent.
Young departed against the run of play when he gloved a delivery down the leg to the ‘keeper. Even as the on-field umpire wasn’t convinced, a review helped India overturn the decision and bag their second wicket of the session. Rachin Ravindra was hit on his pads early by Ravindra Jadeja, and India even took a review but lost it.
Interestingly it was Jadeja who seemed to have troubled both the left-handers the most, but not enough to send either of them back before the first session break.