‘Every time I got a wicket, it felt better’ – side soreness no barrier for 13-wicket Santner

“I have to mention Mitch Santner…” Tom Latham broke off to say while talking about New Zealand’s historic first Test series win in India. It took its time coming, but once Latham did mention Santner, he went on for a while. Santner had, after all, just finished with 13 wickets for the Test in Pune, and played a bigger role in creating history than any of his team-mates.

“Felt a bit harder this time,” Santner said when it was his turn to speak, after he had collected the Player-of-the-Match award. “Credit to India the way they came out. We knew they were going to fire some shots; that was probably the best play on that wicket. [Yashasvi] Jaiswal played extremely well. But we were just trying to hang in there and hopefully one had their name on it. Great feeling in the end.”

For context, New Zealand started Saturday’s third day 301 runs in front with five second-innings wickets in hand. They added 57 more before being bowled out. The pitch was treacherous enough that even India’s biggest fans wouldn’t have backed their team to win, but Jaiswal sped away to a quick half-century. After Rohit Sharma fell cheaply for a second time in the Test, Shubman Gill was as positive as Jaiswal. For a while, India were going at over a run a ball.

“We knew they were going to come out pretty hard; didn’t realise they were going to come that hard,” Latham said. “But we obviously managed to get the breakthroughs when we needed.”

That, again, was thanks to Santner. He got the first three wickets, of Rohit, Gill and Jaiswal, and later added three more.

“In the first innings, he [Santner] was absolutely fantastic. He’s been around the group for a long time and to finally hit a break and bowl the way he has, not only in the first innings but in the second innings, he bowled fantastically well. The credit has to go to him,” Latham said.

When you bowl as well as Santner did, you bowl a lot of overs, which is a bit rare for someone who is primarily a short-format bowler. Before this Test, Santner’s match best in a Test was 6 for 93 and first-class best was 8 for 153. He had only one five-for in first-class cricket. Here, he ended up having to bowl 48.3 overs across the two India innings. That while feeling soreness in his side.

“It’s a bit strange for me [to bowl that many overs],” he admitted. “My side’s a little sore. Must be the spike in my workloads – 20-odd overs out there,” he said, only half-joking. “I felt it a little bit early on in my spell, but I guess in that kind of situation you just want to keep going. Every time I got a wicket, it felt a little better.

“I guess every time you take wickets, you get a little bit of confidence. A few wickets under your belt is always nice. The belief… kind of land the ball on the same spot for a long time, the odd change of pace, and yeah, that’s all we’re trying to do as a spin unit.”

New Zealand’s series win, with one Test to go, must count as a bit of an upset. India hadn’t lost a Test series at home since 2012, to England, and New Zealand had never won a Test series in India. They did this time after being counted out before the series, having just lost 2-0 in Sri Lanka and being without their best batter, Kane Williamson, so far in India.

“I don’t think we played that badly in Sri Lanka,” Latham said. “I guess you look at the result, 2-0 down… I thought we did a lot of good things. Then coming here, I guess it was about trying to stick to our basics and doing as best as we can and I guess trying to play the long game here. We talk about firing a shot and I think we have done that over the last two games. Both surfaces have been completely different. We’ve needed to adapt and I think we’ve adapted pretty well.

“[It was about] trying to be positive as best as we can. I think the method that we played with last night and I guess putting ourselves on the front foot, was outstanding. Runs were the most important thing out there, not necessarily time.”

The last Test of the series will be played at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium from November 1.