For all their resilience on day two, the Kiwi batsmen had no clue how to play India's spinners on Saturday as New Zealand slumped from a commanding 152/1 to 238/5 at lunch on day three. New Zealand still trail India by 80 runs.
After the entire final session of day two was washed out, there were a lot of question marks regarding how the pitch would behave on Saturday. It did not look very different ahead of the start of play, except for some more cracks. However, the first two New Zealand wickets to fall in the session were to balls that did not turn.
Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja both profited as their deliveries kept straight after pitching in line, as Tom Latham and Ross Taylor were trapped in front after playing for the turn. The leg-befores were not plumb, and some New Zealanders might have raised their eyebrows, but it was difficult to fault the umpires' calls.
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson would have seen the behaviour of the pitch and been on his guard. Unfortunately for him, he was castled by an Ashwin delivery that pitched a mile outside off and took middle-and-off. And just like that, New Zealand had lost three wickets in 23 balls in the span of about 45 minutes.
Apart from that delivery, there was a noticeable shift in the line Ashwin was bowling: he was getting closer to the stumps, aiming for the foot marks and bowling a lot straighter than he was on Friday.
Luke Ronchi would have seen the demons in the pitch as he came out to bat at No. 5, but to his credit, he took the attack to the Indian spinners initially, before setting camp along with Mitchess Santner. The two stuck together for more than 23 overs and steadied the wobble, as Virat Kohli eventually brought his fast bowlers into the attack.
However, with just over 15 minutes to go before lunch, Ronchi's resistance was broken as he tried to sweep a delivery from Jadeja that was too full. He missed and was given leg-before, even though it looked like the ball would miss off-stump to the naked eye. Replays showed that the ball might have just grazed the front pad in line before hitting the back pad outside off, but Ronchi will still feel extremely hard done by.
Santner and BJ Watling survived till lunch as the DRS elephant loomed on the ground, but it was definitely India's session and, perhaps, the beginning of their comeback into this match.
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