In what seemed a puzzling move, Rohit chose to bat, picking three spinners and only two fast bowlers despite the first day being washed out by rain and the pitch being under covers for the best part of two days.
“So, what if we put ourselves under pressure a little bit? We want to play well. We want to challenge ourselves. This time around, it didn’t come off, the challenges that were thrown at us. We didn’t respond well, and we found ourselves in a situation where we got bowled out for 46 runs. As a captain, it definitely hurts to see that number, but in 365 days you’ll make two or three bad calls. That’s okay.”
India named three spinners in their XI – R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav – and left out fast bowler Akash Deep, who played the two Tests against Bangladesh last month. As it turned out, the pitch had plenty of assistance for the fast bowlers, and India were reduced to 36 for 6 by lunch.
Rohit said the rationale for picking three spinners was the bare appearance of the pitch, and the fact that Kuldeep has had success on flat surfaces.
“Look, we felt there was not a lot of grass on the pitch. We thought it’ll do whatever it has to do in the first couple of sessions and then it’s going to take turn as the game goes on,” he said. “That is how [it is] whenever we played in India, the first session is always critical and then the wicket tends to settle down and then the spinners come into play.
“As I said, there was not much grass, so we felt the reason to add Kuldeep was because he’s bowled on flat pitches and he’s taken wickets, so we expected the pitch to be a little flatter than what it turned out to be. So clearly a misjudgement of the pitch.”
Another talking point was Virat Kohli batting at No. 3 for the first time since 2016 because Shubman Gill was not fit to play. In six prior innings at No. 3, Kohli had scored only 97 runs at an average of 19.40. Those numbers took another hit as he fell for a 12-ball duck, gloving a rising delivery from William O’Rourke to leg gully. Rohit said Kohli had moved up to not disturb players below him.
“The experienced players are the ones who have to take that extra responsibility and this time it was Virat. He was the one who was ready to do that [bat at No. 3],” Rohit said. “We asked him whether he can manage No. 3 because Sarfaraz [Khan] … we wanted to give Sarfaraz also the position that he usually bats [at] four and five, six maybe.
“But we didn’t want to change Rishabh and KL [Rahul] and hence Sarfaraz went at four and Virat batted at three. It’s a good sign actually, we have players coming up and taking that responsibility and owning up to the challenge. It is a good sign. After a long time, KL has found himself set at number six, so we want to keep … make him bat there.”
Despite India’s tough day, Rohit was in good spirits, and started the press conference with a quip, “chalao talwaar” [draw your swords]. It was also uncommon for an India captain to face the press at the end of such a day during a Test, and Rohit admitted they would need to dig deep to come back after New Zealand finished 134 ahead with seven wickets in hand.
“I think for us to stay in the game, we want to not let them get away,” he said. “[They’ve scored] Way too many runs, clearly they’re 180, so that’s about 140 runs [134], so [keep them] as less as possible. The wicket seems to be settling down a little bit, so we expect the pitch to play like that. We got to bat really big in the second and try and see if we can make a game out of that.”
Ashish Pant is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo
