Kanpur: New Zealand openers Tom Latham and Will Young survived an Indian spin onslaught to reach 72-0 at tea in their first innings after Tim Southee’s five-for bundled out the hosts for 345 on day two of the first Test today.
Latham on 23 and Young on 46 comfortably dealt with spinners Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja after Shreyas Iyer’s free-flowing century on his debut in the polluted industrial city of Kanpur.
Starting the day on 258-4, all the Indian batsmen except Iyer found Southee a handful. He finished with five for 69 in his 27.4-over spell, four of the wickets coming in Friday’s morning session.
The 32-year-old pacer immediately found purchase on the slow wicket and bowled Ravindra Jadeja in his 12th delivery of the day for 50, the all-rounder having failed to add to his overnight score.
This broke Jadeja’s 121-run partnership with Iyer.
The debutant looked fluent and picked up from his overnight score of 75 to hit two fours in the first over off Kyle Jamieson, the Black Caps’ standout bowler on Thursday.
White-ball specialist Iyer hit 13 fours and two sixes in his 171-ball innings of 105 before he was undone by Southee and caught by Will Young at cover to reduce India to 305-7.
Early wickets
Southee also removed wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha for one off 12 balls when he edged a delivery to Tom Blundell behind the stumps.
Bowling all-rounder Axar Patel too fell to Southee after edging a delivery to Blundell after scoring three off nine balls.
The hosts went to lunch at 339-8 and lost the last two wickets immediately after the break, both to Ajaz Patel.
Ravichandran Ashwin was bowled by Patel for 38 off 56 balls and the spinner also claimed Ishant Sharma for zero.
Jamieson, the other pacer, could not add to his tally after three wickets - of openers Mayank Agarwal, Shubman Gill and stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane - on the first day. He bowled 23.2 overs for 91 runs.
