The victorious New Zealand cricket team at the Wankhede Stadium. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)
Coming on the back of a 2-0 series loss against Sri Lanka, New Zealand has turned the tables around to beat India 3-0 away from home. It is the first time in the history of Test cricket that India has been whitewashed in a 3-match series at home. When asked about if he expected his side to win all the games New Zealand cricket Coach Gary Stead said, “I’m not sure we truly believed that.”
“I think when you win the first one, that gives you confidence,” Stead said speaking to Sportskeeda. And then we expected to get a turner in Pune, and look, we were lucky the two games after that, we won the toss as well. We batted first on a difficult wicket and probably got a competitive total and we bowled very well.”
Left-arm Mitchell Santner picked up 13 wickets in Pune and Ajaz Patel picked up 11 wickets in Mumbai playing a crucial part in the side’s win. “Mitchell Santner was outstanding in Pune, and Ajaz Patel was here in Mumbai, which is fantastic for Ajaz considering he was born here as well. And so look, I think it was an unexpected three-nil victory, but well certainly take it though.”
When asked about the strategy of New Zealand Stead would reveal that it was clear from their point of view to attack the Indian spinners and put pressure on them. “We were clear that we needed to put some sort of pressure on the Indian spinners as well,” while Ravindra Jadeja did a decent job in Mumbai by picking 10 wickets he was out of sorts in the first two Tests. Ravichandran Ashwin on the other hand too had an average series by his standards.
“And look the Bengaluru wicket didn’t spin too much, so it probably suited our style a wee bit better. And I think that gave guys confidence when we went to Pune, that we needed to be reasonably positive and try not to let the spinners settle too much,” Stead would say.
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