Ajinkya Rahane Fails Again : Video of Rahane wicket : 1st Test Kanpur

India vs New Zealand, 1st Test, Kanpur, Nov 25 – 29 2021, New Zealand tour of India

Toss Update : India won the toss and chose to Bat

Day 4 Report: The game is evenly poised at Tea. Just when you thought India are taking the game away, Southee struck the wicket of Iyer with the leg side bowling plan. The ball nicked Iyer’s gloves and Iyer knew it. As of the day, the first session was New Zealand’s overall. India’s top order batsmen performed poorly and kept losing wickets. At one stage India were 51-5, with Southee striking two wickets in the space of three balls. Some mature batting display by debutant Iyer and experienced Ashwin saw India’s ship sailing smoothly again.  Ashwin was clean bowled on 32 but he had done a good job by then, stabilizing the innings.

Saha and Iyer had a wonderful partnership, with Saha playing some aggressive shots. Saha wasn’t fully in control of those shots but they came off. He was dropped on 7 by Henry Nicholls. Iyer scored a 50+ plus score and showed his mettle in the process. 

Rahane’s poor form is a matter of concern. With the kind of depth that Indian cricket has, backing the same guy again and again after repeated failures doesn’t sit well with the fans. Trolls and memes have already started circulating, owing to the combination of strong statements but weak performances of Captain Rahane.

Pitch report of Day 4: “If you see a Day 4 pitch in India, it generally shows a lot more wear and tear. This one doesn’t as much because it’s cooler (weather). The cracks haven’t opened as much as they would otherwise, but they certainly have. They are much wider. We saw yesterday, particularly from the Indian spinners through the course of the day. It got progressively worse. There was more spin and there were balls keeping low”

Cheteshwar Pujara: It (preparation) has been good. I was part of the IPL, didn’t play but was training and preparing whenever I got time. So, the prep has been good. We also had a good practice session in Mumbai. It’s good to be back playing at home because we haven’t played in India for a while now. Their (Virat, Rohit) absence does give the others a chance to prove themselves. It (responsibility) is there obviously but I don’t think I should think too much about it. This track was a bit slow the last time we played here, but did spin later.

Axar Patel: It’s a dream start, in fact this is a dream within a dream start for me. No, it (Test cricket) isn’t that easy. Was a hard grind today. They didn’t lose any wickets yesterday and the talk was to keep it tight, don’t try for wickets every ball, just look to be patient. I was sticking to the basics and using the crease a bit. My round-arm deliveries were getting something out of the track and I was optimising that a lot. That’s what worked for me. The track is getting slower and there has been more turn now. Variable bounce is also increasing but still think that runs can be made if the batters apply themselves.

Ravichandran Ashwin: It was a great day for our bowlers. To keep the scoring rate under 2.5 rpo and to exert that kind of pressure, it was an excellent effort from us as a bowling group. Sometimes the figures don’t reflect the pressure created. There was a bit more purchase from one end, Axar also got it to stand a bit and also spun some big. We can’t think about tomorrow, need to focus on the present. I would dearly love one or two of our batters to go out there and make a big score.

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Ajinkya Rahane Fails Again : Video of Rahane wicket : 1st Test Kanpurhttps://t.co/QirmBbhBFT

— avishkar govardhane (@avishkargovardh) November 28, 2021