India emerged on top after Day 4 of the first Test match against New Zealand, at Green Park, Kanpur. Shreyas Iyer (65) and Wriddhiman Saha (61*) lifted India after they were reduced to 51/5. India eventually set New Zealand 284, and R. Ashwin picked up Will Young before stumps.
Resuming on 14/1, India were quickly reduced to 51/5 in the morning. Cheteshwar Pujara (22) began aggressively before edging a ball outside leg from Kyle Jamieson (3-75). Ajinkya Rahane (4) followed soon, leg-before to an arm-ball from Ajaz Patel.
Then, in the 20th over of the innings, Tim Southee hadd Mayank Agarwal (17) caught at slip and Ravindra Jadeja (0) leg-before. At that stage, India led by exactly 100, and New Zealand would have hoped to bowl them for below 200.
At this stage, Iyer and R. Ashwin took control of the match. Ashwin, in particular, played aggressively, and India went to lunch at 84/5.
The pair eventually added 52 before Jamieson got one to climb on to Ashwin (32). The ball richoceted off his bat to the stumps. New Zealand still had a chance, but Saha, despite battling a stiff neck, turned out to be too obdurate. He helped Iyer put on 64 for the seventh wicket.
Having made 105 in the first innings, Iyer went on to become the first Indian to score a hundred and a fifty on Test debut. In fact, Sunil Gavaskar is the only other Indian to have scored two fifties (65 and 67*) in his first Test match. Just when he threatened to accelerate, he bottom edged a pull off Southee down the leg to Tom Blundell.
India went to tea at 167/7. Whatever chance New Zealand had disappeared after the break, as Saha and Axar batted for over 20 overs to add an unbroken 67. Saha got his sixth Test fifty, his first since 2017. He was on 61 and Axar on 28 when Ajinkya Rahane called them in.
India then opened bowling with Ashwin and Axar. Both found turn and bounce. Ashwin extracted a leg-before decision against Young off the last ball of his second over. Young reviewed a second too late, and it was later revealed that the ball would have missed the leg stump by a considerable distance.
Brief scores: India 345 (Shreyas Iyer 105; Tim Southee 5-69) and 234/7 decl. (Shreyas Iyer 65; Kyle Jamieson 3-40) lead New Zealand 296 (Tom Latham 95; Axar Patel 5-62) and 4/1 (Tom Latham 2*; R. Ashwin 1-3) by 279 runs.