Just when everybody thought that it was all over for Wriddhiman Saha after KS Bharat’s brilliant wicket-keeping in the ongoing first Test, the veteran showed exactly why his grit is valued in gold in domestic cricket.
Not only did Saha put up a great resistance with Shreyas Iyer as India stumbled to 103-6 but even after Shreyas’ departure, made sure that he reached his own fifty and put India in a commanding position to dismantle the Kiwis in the final innings.
Saha’s unbeaten 61 off 126 balls added with Iyer’s 65 off 125 balls was a reason why India got to 234-7 and with a total lead of 283, declared their innings. With just half an hour to go, the Kiwis were asked to bat and India got the desired result, the wicket of Will Young, although it was rather a result of horrible umpiring.
The Ravichandran Ashwin delivery that got Young’s wicket was going down the leg and hawk-eye showed that it would have missed the stumps by a huge margin. However, Young got very late in using the Decision-Review-System and was later seen getting frustrated sitting in the dressing room and repenting over it.
However, William Somerville walked in as nightwatchman and survived the next over before light was offered to the Kiwis and they accepted, ending the day’s play at 4-1, requiring 280 runs on the last day with nine wickets in hand.
Earlier in the day, starting their innings from an overnight score of 14-1, the Indian team were rocked in the first hour itself with Jamieson sending back Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajaz Patel counting for yet another failure for Ajinkya Rahane.
Tim Southee then struck twice in one over to remove Mayank Agarwal and Ravindra Jadeja and put India in all sorts of bother at 51-5. It was then that centurion from the previous innings, Iyer put together 52 runs for the sixth wicket with Ashwin.
However, Ashwin was removed right after Lunch. Iyer then got together with Saha and added another 64 runs for the seventh wicket and in that process, the 26-year-old reached his fifty and became the only Indian to score a century and a fifty in two innings on debut. Iyer got out just at the stroke of Tea, becoming Southee’s third scalp in the innings.
Axar Patel gave a great account of himself with the bat as well as he partnered Saha to an unbeaten 53 run stand for the ninth wicket courtesy which the Bengal born wicket-keeper reached his sixth Test fifty, the first-ever since 2017.
On the last day, the ball is expected to do a lot more than it did today and India with its three spinners would be relishing the opportunity to win the Test. Can Kane Williamson and his men defend their way out to a draw or not will be interesting to watch.