Shake up in Test cricket’s top order by New Zealand

With a limited pool of players available for selection in the national teams, New Zealand cricket faces challenges in preventing cricketers from prioritizing franchise cricket. The use of "casual contracts," allowing players to easily step in and out of international duties to participate in lucrative T20 leagues, has become a norm in the cricketing world.

In between all this New Zealand assembled a squad of 16 which set out to shake up India’s Test side – structured on feeder programmes and a hardwired mentality to win in unfamiliar climes. Australia tried to do it the way they know best, taking the aggressive route. They even roped in an Ashwin-like spinner from Baroda for net sessions to familiarise themselves with the action of India’s premier off-spinner. It wasn’t enough as India won the series 2-1.

England tried to ‘Bazball’ India with the bat early this year. Their brains trust fast-tracked off-spinner Shoaib Bashir – with 10 County wickets at an average of 67 – so that they could benefit from his higher release point on Indian pitches with spin and bounce. It created a flutter – England won the first Test -- before fizzling out as the hosts took the series 4-1.

It eventually took an organised approach of putting in the hard yards, simulating Indian conditions and applying years of white-ball experience from IPL in Test cricket, appropriately by New Zealand, cricket’s perennial underdogs.

“Having two Test matches in Sri Lanka...nothing prepares you like playing hard Test cricket. Being there beforehand and understanding similar conditions in terms of playing spin certainly helped,” New Zealand skipper Tom Latham said after the 113-run win on Saturday.

Even before landing in Sri Lanka, batter Rachin Ravindra – he scored 65 in Pune after 134 and 39* in Bengaluru - made the trip to Chennai Super Kings academy to get used to black soil and red soil surfaces and to firm up different gameplans.

Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, whose 13 wickets in Pune came after having played only 28 Tests in nine years and taken 54 wickets, put all his white-ball learnings to good use on a dry surface that demanded that spinners constantly attack the stumps. That he could top his accuracy with subtle changes in speeds and angles to out bowl the master of this tribe Ravindra Jadeja – his teammate at CSK for whom he has played only 18 matches since his IPL debut in 2019, taking 15 wickets – went a long way in deciding the second Test.

“Obviously the wickets that he got...but I think what will go unnoticed is the amount of overs he bowled back-to-back and to keep a threat for that amount of time,” said Latham. “I keep trying to take him off, but he keeps taking a wicket. So, I said “you can keep going”. Look, I can’t praise him enough in terms of what he’s done this game. He was simply fantastic.”

Even Devon Conway’s first innings’ efforts - 91 in Pune and 76 in Bengaluru - were outcomes of his positive game against spin, perfected during his time with CSK. Conway was at ease bringing out the broom – both conventional and reverse – as a scoring option against spin to disturb the lengths of India’s spinners.

It could be argued that India got the short end of the stick after the two tosses; even though they misread the pitch in a big way in Bengaluru. If the Bengaluru Test saw a freakish turn of events with rain and overhead conditions making New Zealand’s task simpler, they won fair and square in Pune – in as Indian as the conditions can be. Their spinners found the right formula to outfox India’s famed batters and their batters – each employing their own methods – found ways to frustrate India’s experienced tweakers. They would be proud of that, and it showed in their exuberant celebrations.

“I’m sort of lost for words a little bit. It’s obviously an immensely proud moment for this group,” Latham said. “A lot of New Zealand teams have come here over the past 69 years, I think it is, and in 13 series, to be the first team to win a series over here is immensely special.”

A long night of celebration may have followed. New Zealand fully deserve it for shaking up Test cricket’s established order.