Bengaluru: After bundling out India for a record low of 46, New Zealand batted confidently to reach 82/1 at tea in their first innings to claim the upper-hand over the shocked hosts on the second day of the opening Test here Thursday.
Devon Conway (61) and Will Young (5) were at the crease when the teams went out for the short break after India suffered a collapse of Adelaidean proportions, this time to their lowest innings total at home.
Conway, who creamed a fifty in 54 balls, and skipper Tom Latham (15) added 67 runs for the first wicket to consolidate the Blackcaps’ position before the latter departed.
Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav fetched India’s first wicket, when he had Latham leg before through a DRS call.
Before that, Kiwis were propelled to this position of command by their pacers Mark Henry (5/15) and William O’Rourke (4/22), who used their high release point to generate disconcerting bounce from hard lengths.
However, it was Tim Southee’s wobble seam and fuller length that helped New Zealand gain the first breakthrough.
Southee castled skipper Rohit Sharma, who opted rather inexplicably to bat first in conditions which were more Christchurch than sub-continental, with a wobble seam nip-backer.
Even at that point, a slip-up akin to that 36 all out in Adelaide was unimaginable.
However, that horror script from three years ago found an encore here, as India were all out shortly after lunch, comfortably beating the previous lowest of 75 they made against the West Indies at New Delhi in 1987.
Henry’s opening spell troubled them to no end, giving ample indications of the doom coming the hosts’ way.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, who stood a foot outside the crease to nullify swing, was all at sea against Henry in this period. There were several play-and-misses in his innings but the left-hander showed some spunk to stay in the middle.
Virat Kohli (0) walked in at the rather unfamiliar No. 3 slot, but his stay was snapped after nine balls.
Latham introduced O’Rourke and the pacer immediately netted the big fish.
Kohli looked to jab a climbing delivery towards on side but he was not in control as the ball deflected off his gloves en route to Glenn Phillips at leg gully.
Sarfaraz Khan, who came into the eleven after a stiff neck forced Shubman Gill to sit out of this match, was in no mood to hang around even when the ball was moving around.
On the third ball he faced, the Mumbai power-hitter tried to slap Henry over mid-off but Conway made a leap of faith to grab the ball, leaving the bowler in splits.
At 10 for three, a lot depended on Rishabh Pant to bail India out of this spot of bother.
Pant, who was dropped on 7 by stumper Tom Blundell off O’Rourke, got India’s first boundary of the day in the fifth ball of the 12th over, a smash through the covers off the same bowler.
But Jaiswal’s patience did not pay off (13, 63 balls) as he fell to O’Rourke with Ajaz Patel completing a stunning catch at point off a rasping cut by the batter.
The dismissals of KL Rahul (0), caught down the leg side by Blundell off O’Rourke, and Jadeja pushed India further to the wall at 34 for six at lunch.
India lost the remaining four wickets for just 12 runs in about 20 minutes into a sunny second session, leaving their bowlers with a mountain to surmount.
