New Zealand will look to replicate the approach of the Indian spinners in varying their pace on the ball to get wickets when play resumes on day two of the second Test here, said assistant coach Luke Ronchi. (More Cricket News)
Washington Sundar (7/59) and Ravichandran Ashwin (3/64) combined to keep New Zealand to 259 in the first innings as India reached 16/1 at stumps the opening day here.
"If you notice, for the first couple of sessions, the Indians were bowling quite quick -- the spinners -- and towards the back end they started to slow their pace,” Ronchi told the media after the day’s play.
Ashwin and Washington worked out the plan of varying pace to trigger a New Zealand collapse from being 197/3.
While Ashwin took three wickets at the top, Washington claimed the remaining seven to record his best figures in Test cricket.
“That sort of made for variable, a bit more turn and bounce and variable sort of reactions off the surface, so that's something we can use in our bowling innings, knowing that changes of pace are quite significant,” he added.
Ronchi praised Washington for being consistent with his lengths on the first day to extract the most out of the surface.
“It was just this consistency of being able to hit a good area for long periods of time. There were some balls that went really wide in the crease.
"He got some good drift and the ball that got Rachin (out) was from really wide and straight and hit (the off stump). That's a really nice ball to bowl for anyone,” he said.
Ronchi said while the pitch here at the MCA Stadium did not offer as much spin as it was anticipated, the key for New Zealand would be to keep it tight against the Indian batters.
“Both teams could quite easily say at the start of the day, they thought this wicket would turn more than it has so far, but again, it's just about tomorrow for us, build pressure, bowl in some good areas and get that ball (off) variable bounce,” he added.
Ronchi said the pitch here at the MCA Stadium is not the one to assure batters that they have settled down.
“We saw some balls today really jumped off a length and then some stayed a little bit, they just skidded through a little bit, it's going to be a surface where maybe as the game goes on you're not going to feel like you're actually in,” he added.
