India suffered an embarrassing defeat to New Zealand in the second Test at MCA Stadium in Pune. India were hot favourites to win the series, but New Zealand outplayed them in all departments. The defeat in the second Test meant that India suffered their first series defeat at home since loss to England in 2012.
It was a pretty one-sided contest in Pune where New Zealand posted 259 in the first innings before bowling out India for 159. New Zealand fared better in the second innings as well and scored 255, setting India a target of 359. India started well, with Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring a fiery fifty, but his wicket triggered a collapse as India were bowled out for 245, losing the game by 113 runs.
The two defeats exposed a lot of issues for India, including the form of senior batters Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. The conditions in Bengaluru were favourable for fast bowlers and New Zealand pacers shot down India for just 46 in the first innings. The Pune wicket was a rank turner and Indian players did not have any answer to Mitchell Santner. Questions are being raised if this Indian batting lineup is good enough to score only on flat tracks.
Meanwhile, Indian captain Rohit Sharma reacted to the defeat and called it a collective failure.
“Disappointing. It’s not what we expected. Got to give credit to NZ – they played better than us. We failed to capitalise on certain moments. We failed to respond to those challenges. And we sit here today. Didn’t think we batted well enough to get runs on the board. You’ve got to pick 20 wickets to win, yes, but batters have to put runs on the board. Was a great fightback to restrict them to 250-odd but we knew it was going to be challenging. When they started off, they were 200/3 and for us to come back and get them bowled out for 259 was a great effort. Wasn’t a pitch where a lot was happening. We just didn’t bat well enough,” Rohit said.
“Things would’ve been slightly different had we got a bit closer in the first innings. We want to show up well at Wankhede and try and win that Test. It’s a collective failure. I’m not somebody who would blame just the batters or the bowlers. We will come out with better intent, better ideas and better methods at Wankhede,” he added.
