Kanpur: What a day’s cricket has been for the fans on Day two of the first Test match between India and New Zealand at Green Park Stadium here on Friday.
First, they witnessed India’s Shreyas Iyer’s debut Test hundred and then Tom Latham and Will Young’s unbeaten fifties, which helped visitors reach 129 for no loss at stumps, in reply to India’s 345 all out, after Tim Southee led Kiwis fightback with a five-wicket haul early on in the day.
New Zealand now trail India 216 runs with all wickets in hands. Not losing a wicket in 57 overs, was a tremendous application displayed by Latham and Young against seasoned Indian spinners of the calibre of Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja.
Though the Kiwi openers were patient, they cracked boundaries on offer, and fearlessly swept Indian spinners, who tried a lot of tricks without any success.
Latham had three successful reviews after he was given out, and two of those leg before decisions showed the ball kissing the bat, and another missing it.
New Zealand went into the Tea break unscathed at 72 for 0, after Southee, along with spinner Ajaz Patel, folded India’s first innings just after lunch.
Earlier, Iyer lit up the day by cracking his debut Test hundred by hammering 105 off 171 balls, which was studded with 13 boundaries and 2 sixes. His first 75 runs came on Day 1 of the match.
Iyer’s hundred, along with Jadeja’s 50 and a 121-run stand for the fifth wicket with him, helped India to lift themselves out of the woods, when they were struggling at 145 for 4.
Resuming the overnight score of 258 for 4, India began on the worst note possible as Jadeja was cleaned up by Southee on his overnight score.
After Jadeja’s departure, Iyer motored along and punished anything loose on offer. He steered Kayle Jamieson for four behind point and then executed a traditional cover drive before he sneaked one between slips and gully for boundaries in the next over of the same bowler.
After ambling across for two runs off Jamieson, Iyer joined the elite club of Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag among others, to score a hundred on debut. He also became the third Indian on debut to achieve the milestone against New Zealand.
Wriddhiman Saha (1) did not last long and returned to the pavilion. Iyer clubbed a boundary, but just when he looked for a bigger hundred, he thick-edged a Southee delivery to a diving Tom Blundell behind stumps.
Axar also fell to Southee, who became the first visiting fast bowler to take a five-wicket haul in Kanpur since January 1980. Ashwin (38) and Ishant Sharma (0) were removed by Ajaz, folding India’s first innings.
