India was placed under pressure by Santner and Latham.
In the second Test in Pune, New Zealand pushed India through their paces, led by Mitchell Santner and Tom Latham. After shocking the home team with a brilliant display of ball skills, the visitors increased their advantage to almost 300 at stumps on the second day. India had a good start to the day as Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal discussed limits. But Gill's firing set off a chain of events from which the home team never really recovered. Sarfaraz Khan and Rishabh Pant were among those removed after Virat Kohli missed a low full ball completely. Some of the dismissals were caused by poor shot selection, despite the pitch's trickery.
Six wickets were lost in that morning's session, with Santner leading the attack, and India's lengthy batting order did not help either. After lunch, when there were only two recognized hitters remaining, Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja, the latter chose to take a gamble and cut the gap. The strategy worked well since it applied some pressure to Ajaz Patel. Santner, however, stopped Jadeja's onslaught as he finished with a seven after completing his five-fer.
The strain on India increased when New Zealand's openers made a strong start and secured a crucial lead over 100. Will Young and Devon Conway were removed by Ashwin and Washington, while Latham persisted at the opposite end. New Zealand was keen to score runs as soon as possible since it was predicted that the surface will become more challenging to bat on. Rachin Ravindra was taken out by an arm ball from Washington, but Daryl Mitchell signaled his intentions by sweeping his third ball for a boundary. Mitchell was caught too late because he was unable to time a slog perfectly, so Washington ultimately grabbed his guy.
However, New Zealand continued to exploit the bowling assault, and the wickets did not halt the flow of runs. In actuality, over the first 40 overs of the innings, India did not bowl a single maiden. Although Latham missed a ton due to Washington's 11th wicket of the Test, his 86 is now a huge contribution given the circumstances of the Test match.
In summary, India 156 (Ravindra Jadeja 38; Mitchell Santner 7/53) is 301 runs behind New Zealand 259 & 198/5 (Tom Latham 86; Washington Sundar 4/56).
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