At a loss of words to explain India’s poor performance, Shikhar Dhawan on Monday conceded that New Zealand have turned the tables on his side in the ongoing second cricket Test but insisted that the visitors still have a chance to not just save but win the match.
The hosts took a 325-run lead at the end of the fourth day’s play at Basin Reserve, but Dhawan chose to stay positive after what was a throughly disappointing day for Indian bowlers. “There is still one more day left tomorrow. We will try our best to win but even if we lose, there’s a lot to learn from it. There is disappointment but we have played some good cricket, especially getting them out for a low score in the first innings,” Dhawan said.
“Then we batted well in tough conditions and basically dominated the match till yesterday. But today they turned the tables on us. Tomorrow in the morning, we will look to get them out and then whatever the target is, we will bat according to the situation,” he added. “The wicket has improved a lot. It has gotten slower as the game has gone on. McCullum and Watling batted beautifully of course. They respected the good balls and didn’t give us any chances the whole day. They batted very well,” Dhawan said.
The pair might not have given any major chances during the day but McCullum did offer an outside edge that went past Dhawan at third slip, whilst no one else was present in the slip cordon. “For that moment that’s what we had planned, to go in with one slip and one gully. We wanted McCullum to hit a few shots. But when the slips were there, he wasn’t hitting many shots. When they weren’t there, a nick came and unfortunately I was a bit far,” Dhawan said.
“We bowled in good areas and were patient. Their run-rate was low but they didn’t give any chances. Once the batsmen get set and they score big runs, it isn’t easy to get them out. And they applied themselves very nicely as well. Unfortunately we dropped McCullum yesterday and paid a heavy price for that,” he added.
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