An all-round show by Trent Boult, backed up by some disciplined bowling efforts by his colleagues helped New Zealand to continued their domination on Day Three of the Wellington Test. Firstly while batting at No. 11 he added a valuable 24-ball 38 and stretched Blackcap’s first-innings lead to 183 and then the left-armer’s around the stumps line fetched three crucial scalps, including Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli – the torchbearers of this Indian Test batting line-up. At Stumps the visitors were 140 for 4 with Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari at the crease, trailing New Zealand by 39 runs.
Starting the innings with a huge deficit to counter, India were rocked early with yet another failure of Prithvi Shaw. He failed to tackle a Boult’s short-pitched ball from around the wicket angle and was hold out at the catching square-leg. From there Mayank Agarwal and Pujara steadied the ship with a 51-run stand. But the partnership lasted exactly until the end of the second session – with Pujara deciding to leave alone an incoming delivery of Boult and it disturbed his furniture.
Kohli too was not allowed to get going as the New Zealand bowlers bowled tight line and lengths to him on that pitch which had some uneven bounce. Colin de Grandhomme and Kyle Jamieson frustrated him with a fifth stump line but unlike the first innings, this time the skipper showed the patience and left most of the deliveries, especially off the debutant.
At the other end Agarwal during his knock of 58 looked comfortable against the shorter balls but eventually nicked a full ball down the leg-side to the wicketkeeper BJ Watling. It was followed by the big wicket of Kohli, who tried to take on a short ball of Boult but only managed to edge to Watling behind the stumps.
From 113 for 4, Rahane and Vihari batted with a lot of composure and played the rest of the day without any further damage.
Earlier resuming at 216 for 5, New Zealand were jolted in the very first ball of the day when Jasprit Bumrah removed Boult with a peach of a delivery. The ball generated some extra bounce from the good length area and the Blackcaps keeper edged to his counterpart Rishabh Pant. Soon Southee, who batted ahead of Jamieson, failed to Ishant.
The two wickets within the first half-an-hour lifted the spirits in the Indian camp but their joy was soon faded away as de Grandhomme and Jamieson put up a counter-attacking stand of 71 runs. And when both of them got out to Ravichandran Ashwin in quick successions, it was the last wicket stand between Ajaz Patel and Boult, which frustrated India. Eventually Ishant got Boult out with a bouncer and finished proceedings with his 11th five-wicket haul in Test cricket.
Brief scores:
India 165 & 140/4 (Mayank Agarwal 58; Trent Boult 3-27) trail New Zealand 348 (Kane Williamson 89, Ross Taylor 44, Kyle Jamieson 44; Ishant Sharma 5-68, Ravichandran Ashwin 3-99) by 39 runs.