Mumbai, Nov 1 (PTI) Off-spinner Washington Sundar stymied New Zealand’s progress with two vital strikes as the visitors reached 92/3 at lunch against India on the opening day of the third and final Test on Friday.
Washington (2/26) added two more dismissals to bring his wicket tally to 13 in the series, maintaining consistent pressure on the Kiwi batters after pacer Akash Deep (1/22) gave India the first breakthrough.
At lunch, New Zealand had their hopes pinned on Will Young for a long haul who batted well to reach 38 not out (3x4s, 1x6s), with Daryl Mitchell (11 not out) at the other end.
Washington’s identical strikes to remove skipper Tom Latham (28) and in-form Rachin Ravindra (5) helped India pull things back in control in the second half of the session as New Zealand appeared to be consolidating on a day one wicket, which had something in it for all parties involved.
Coming off a 11-wicket match haul in second Test at Pune, Washington picked up rhythm soon after his introduction into the attack to keep testing the Kiwi batters’ defence.
It did not take him long to strike, drawing the New Zealand captain out to defend but beating him with the drift and turn on a delivery that pitched in the line of stumps in his third over, Washington beat the bat’s outside edge to hit the off-stump.
Kiwi batting sensation Ravindra suffered a similar fate on the fifth delivery that he faced off the Indian spinner, who again got the ball to drift and turn past the outside edge and hit the off-stump.
Earlier, with not much initial movement off the surface assisting the Indian pacers, the ploy to go a little fuller in length seemed to work well as Mohammed Siraj trapped Devon Conway (4) in front of the wickets but a thick inside edge saved the opener in the third over.
However, Akash angled one into the left-hander which beat Conway’s bat to pin him out leg-before, with New Zealand also burning a review against the on-field call.
While Latham consolidated from there on, using the sweep shot to a good effect, Young once again showed his array of strokes and composite defence as a solid No 3 batter for the Kiwis.
Young went after anything that had width on offer to collect boundaries and having studied R Ashwin (0/20) quite well for the ace Indian spinner’s first three overs, he did not have any hesitation in shimmying down the track to clear the ropes over midwicket.
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