Published: Sep 18, 2016, 12:11 PM (IST)
Edited: Sep 18, 2016, 12:11 PM (IST)
New Zealand players’ problems have not ended yet in the warm-up game against Mumbai. The Kiwis have already lost two wickets in the first session after Mumbai declared as soon as Siddhesh Lad reached his century. Lad reached his century in 99 balls with the help of 8 fours and 7 sixes, he scored 84 runs in boundaries alone. BlackCaps opener Martin Guptill continued his bad run in the longer version of the game as he got out on the second ball he faced in second innings. Luke Ronchi opened the bowling instead of Tom Latham. Ronchi responded to the call and tried to settle himself in. Mitchell Santner came in to bat at No.3. Santner got beaten at several instances by Vishal Dabholkar and Balwinder Sandhu. He got out trying to go down the wicket and attack Lad bowling the first over of second innings. He got out after scoring just 8 runs.
To everyone’s surprise fast bowler Doug Bracewell came in to bat at No.4. Bracewell too struggled to bat in the middle. Soon after playing 10 balls, Bracewell sent one sailing over Dabholkar’s head for a humongous six over long on. It would be apt to say that skipper Kane Williamson wants his lower order batsmen to get accustomed to the situations here. Though, Williamson was seen going towards the nets for batting practice. He along with Kiwi all-rounder might be needed in the middle as the pitch is getting dry and the ball might spin a little more as the ball gets old.
Earlier, Mumbai skipper Aditya Tare did not come to bat and retired at his overnight score of 53. Parikshit Valsngkar came in to bat. Valsangkar too tried to take on the New Zealand bowlers but failed. He hit one straight into the hands of mid-off fielder Neil Wagner as Mark Craig got his first wicket in the innings. Sufiyan Shaikh came into bat but got runout after scoring a single due to a terrible mix-up between him and Lad. Day One’s star Balwinder Sandhu too tried his hand against Kiwi bowlers and even succeeded to hit a boundary. Tare declared soon after Lad scored his century to give themselves a chance to get the Kiwi batsmen out and increase their chances of winning the three-day game.
Brief Scores:
New Zealand 62 for 2 in 15 overs (Luke Ronchi 41, Doug Bracewell 8) & 324 for 7 dec (Tom Latham 55, Kane Williamson 50; Balwinder Sandhu 2 for 21, Siddhesh Lad 1 for 34) trail Mumbai 464 for 8 dec (Suryakumar Yadav 103, Kaustubh Pawar 100; Ish Sodhi 2 for 132, Trent Boult 1 for 35) by 107 runs.
(Arun Rawal, a reporter with CricketCountry, is a daydreamer, movie buff, and cricket fanatic. He could not play cricket, so did the next best thing, writing for it. He loves to play the flick shot over square leg, and believes Sachin Tendulkar is God. His Twitter handle is @ArunRawal93)
