Rahul Tiwari
khelja|02-11-2024
Team India has come into a strong position in the Mumbai Test match against New Zealand. The second day of the match was entirely in the name of Indian players. Team India batted brilliantly in the beginning of the day and then the bowler did the job of breaking New Zealand's back. Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant showed wonders with the bat, while the magic of spin of Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin was seen once again. Till now in this series, collapse was seen only from the Indian batsmen, but this time the New Zealand team became its victim.
Team India started the second day by leading by 86 runs at the loss of 4 wickets. Amazing batting was seen from Shubhman Gill and Rishabh Pant. Both the batsmen scored half-centuries. Shubman Gill managed to score 90 runs but missed a century and Rishabh Pant played a stormy inning of 60 runs. After this, Washington Sundar played an important role in giving India the lead by scoring unbeaten 38 runs in the lower order. In such a situation, in response to New Zealand's 235 runs, India scored 263 runs in its first innings and took a lead of 28 runs.
By the end of the second day's play, New Zealand had scored 171 runs for nine wickets in its second innings and had taken a lead of 143 runs. During this, Jadeja took four wickets for 52 runs and moved towards taking five wickets in the second innings. At the same time, Ashwin has taken three wickets for 63 runs while Sundar and Akashdeep have taken one wicket each.
Let us tell you, during this innings, New Zealand's batting appeared to be collapsing like a pack of cards. In fact, at one time New Zealand had scored 94 runs at the loss of 3 wickets. But to reach 171 runs, he lost 6 more wickets. This was seen only with Team India in this series till now. But this time the Indian bowlers were successful in dismissing the New Zealand batsmen in bunches.
Team India will now focus on taking down the remaining one wicket of New Zealand as soon as possible on the third day of the game. The pitch of Wankhede Stadium is helping the spinners and in such a situation, it will be challenging for India to achieve the target of around 150 runs. If India wants to avoid a clean sweep, then its batsmen will have to chase the target at all costs.