Mitchell Santner led the rout as New Zealand stunned a strong Indian batting line-up on the second day in Pune to take complete control of the second Test. While the pitch did play tricks, India would also rue some of the shots they played as they ended up losing six wickets in the session and were reduced to 107/7 at Lunch.
Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal made a positive start in the morning, dealing in boundaries. But against the run of play, Gill was trapped leg-before-wicket by Santner and that kickstarted a collapse. Virat Kohli completely missed a low full-toss against Santner to lose his stumps and that stunned the Pune crowd. While Rishabh Pant got off a typical start by finding the boundary off just his second ball, Jaiswal departed at the other end after edging one to slip.
From there on, every ball was an event given the turn and bounce on offer. But it was the lack of bounce on one quicker delivery from Glenn Phillips that accounted for Pant as a half-tracker kept low to shatter the stumps. India’s long batting line-up didn’t help their cause as wickets just kept tumbling. Sarfaraz Khan miscued one off Santner and the left-arm spinner also removed R Ashwin quickly.
Washington Sundar survived a shout for lbw just minutes before Lunch and alongside Ravindra Jadeja, he has a massive rebuilding job ahead of him with India still trailing by 152 runs.
Brief scores: India 107/7 (Shubman Gill 30; Mitchell Santner 4/36, Glenn Phillips 2/26) trail New Zealand 259 by 152 runs.
