Axar Patel’s sensation bowling on a Day 3 Kanpur pitch has tilted the game in India’s favour again. Patel’s fifth fifer in his fourth Test helped India bundled out New Zealand for 296 in the third session and take a 51-run lead. However, India suffered an early blow in the second innings as Kyle Jamieson got rid of Shubman Gill. India could add only 14 runs to the board and ended the day with a 63-run lead.
New Zealand were 129/0 at the start of day’s play. The Kiwi openers had frustrated Indian bowlers for two sessions. The partnership was broken by India’s veteran off-spinner R Ashwin in the 10th over of the day. William Young departed for 89 whereas Tom Latham carried on. Latham would have followed him to the dressing room had India opted for DRS off Ashwin’s bowling. At the stroke of lunch time, Umesh Yadav trapped Mayank Agarwal in front of the stumps to get India another breakthrough.
In the second session, India made short work of New Zealand’s middle-order. Patel added another wicket to his tally by removing Henry Nicholls early. The left-arm spinner wreaked havoc in the session as he got Latham stumped out off a beauty of a delivery. Latham missed his century by just five runs. Ravindra Jadeja joined the party too as he got the wicket of Rachin Ravindra before tea break.
In the third session, he also got the wicket of Tom Blundell to put the Kiwis under pressure. He followed it up with Tim Southee’s wicket to register his fifth five-wicket haul in Test cricket. Kyle Jamieson added some crucial runs to the Kiwi total but Ashwin broke the partnership between him and William Somerville. Ashwin bagged two wickets in the third session as New Zealand fell short of four runs of 300-run mark.
Earlier Srikar Bharat kept wickets as Wriddhiman Saha had a stiff neck. Bharat was top-notch for a better part of the day as he took two catches and affected one stumping.
