Williamson, Latham add on to India’s worries after the visitors restrict the hosts to 318.
The 42nd over of the New Zealand innings was perhaps the most eventful over of the day. The ball began to bounce, turn, grip and everything devilish that you would associate with a deteriorating Indian pitch. One of the deliveries from Ravichandran Ashwin nearly bowled Tom Latham around his legs while another turned past his outside edge with dangerous bounce. That was the moment which signalled a shift in momentum towards the Indians. A couple of overs later, Umesh Yadav bowled a reverse swinging beauty but couldn’t find Kane Williamson’s edge. After that gripping thirty minutes of play, tea was taken. Rain decided to play his cameo and no further play was possible on what would possibly have been the session that decided the course of the match. New Zealand ended the day at 152 for 1, 166 runs adrift of India’s first innings score of 318.
Until that moment, both Williamson and Latham were in cruise control mode. Their tackling of both Ashwin and Jadeja was of the highest order. Only two maidens of a combined 31 overs bowled by the spin twins is testimony to that. Latham got a reprieve on 47 when KL Rahul caught him at forward short leg only to make contact with his helmet resulting in the third umpire ruling in favour of the batsman. They rotated strike, pounced on the odd bad ball to puncture an Indian attack that kept toiling away without any success. The duo put on their sixth century stand together in just their 24th innings and has added 117 unbeaten runs so far.
Virat Kohli desperately missed a fifth bowling option which forced him to turn to Murali Vijay who bowled a solitary but eventful over of his off-spinners. One of his deliveries beat Latham’s outside edge while he played all around a juicy full toss only for the umpire to rule the leg-before appeal in favour of the batsman. Luck seemed to have deserted the hosts as Ravichandran Ashwin managed to hit Williamson on the helmet due to which the flapping rolled onto the stumps but the bails remained unmoved.
Earlier in the day, India managed to add another 27 runs to their overnight score of 291 before Neil Wagner had Umesh Yadav caught by BJ Watling behind the stumps. An under-confident Martin Guptill tried hitting the Indian bowlers around the park and got to 21 before an Umesh Yadav in-swinger trapped him in front of the sticks.
Just as every test match cliché goes, the first hour will be extremely critical tomorrow morning as the pitch has just begun to show signs of breaking up. Turn as well as reverse swing will keep the Indian bowlers interested and will be a test of character of the Kiwi batsmen to come.
hormazfatakia 
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