Analysing the wickets that fell, the bowling , the batting, the key player performances, the intent and also the possible approaches on Day 6 of the WTC Final 2021
Play resumed on the scheduled 5th day of the WTC Final, with New Zealand trailing by 116 runs and India needing 8 wickets. Play although did not resume on time, and 7 overs were lost in the rescheduled playing timings, all 3 sessions were bowled with just being shifted by an hour, with rain starting just a few minutes before start of play but then the rain stopped, clouds started clearing up and by the end of the first hour of the second session, the sun was out and shining brightly as well.
GUIDE: SESSION 1 – INDIAN BOWLING, WILLAIMSON’S BATTING, AND ALL 3 WICKETS ARE COVERED IN DETAIL
SESSION 2: THE NEW ZEALAND BATTING IN THAT SESSION IS COVERED IN DETAIL
SESSION 3: THE COMPARISION ANALYSIS OF INDIA’S INNINGS TO THE OTHER TWO INNINGS IN THE MATCH IS GIVEN
FINALLY, APPROACH FOR DAY 6 AND CONCLUSION
SESSION 1
The first session. India needed a handful of wickets were as New Zealand not only needed to survive but also need to score more than a handful of runs. India got 3 wickets and New Zealand were able to score only 34 runs.
The session started well for India with both Ishant and Bumrah continuing on from where they left off, at the end of Day 3 and even improving on that. The bowlers were bowling at a good pace and were hitting the lines that would draw a false shot from the batsman or would pass from around the middle stump to off stump. The Indian bowlers were bowling consistent lines and were bowling them at very good speeds which was either pushing the batsmen into their crease or would draw a false shot from them. They were doing great but they still needed to bowl fuller in order to make the batsmen play more false shots and get out.
The one man who got great seam movement, played to his own strengths, rectified his length as well, and was successful in getting quite a good number of wickets by doing all of this was Md. Shami. The first ball he bowled in his first spell for the day was the sign of how devastating he could be for New Zealand. That ball seamed interestingly a lot and surprised almost everyone on the ground. Shami got the highest seam movement out of the 3 Indian fast bowlers and was able to use it well to his own advantage. But not all wickets fell due to the movement off the pitch, and some like the Ross Taylor’s wicket fall by creating a scenario, setting up the batsman and fielding well.
But but but… before India got the first breakthrough of the day courtesy Shami and a splendid catch by Gill, the New Zealand batsmen, especially Williamson, made India work for more than an hour while even frustrating some probably as they were not even scoring runs as such. So, before we take a look at the wickets, it is also important to understand the part where India failed to pick wickets as that is what lead to India starting their second innings with a trail.
WILLIAMSON’S SLOW AND STEADY INNINGS
The main person who lead New Zealand to the second session and helped New Zealand play for long was Kane Williamson. Apart from the fact that in the process and effort to last long he was playing slowly and was leaving a lot of balls, especially the length deliveries that were going away from him, another interesting feature of his innings was that he was mainly defending the ball while presenting the full face of his bat and playing with soft hands, meaning that he was putting a lot of force while defending the ball and hence, the ball wasn’t getting a lot of force on it meaning that every ball that he edged would fall short of the slip cordon, which can’t come too close. That is how Williamson lasted, especially since he had put himself into a defence mode meaning that he also wasn’t being drawn to play drives necessarily. He was playing very close to his body, and as playing the ball under his eyes, close to him. The Indian bowlers also left a bit to be desired at times, which all came down to them not being able to bowl as full as would probably be more beneficial, but they did their best eventually getting him out as well.
The first wicket was the perfect example of how well Kohli was placing his fielders. Shubman was right in place for that Taylor drive, and Shami bowled a ball that allowed Taylor to play that drive without any issue, and then Shubman just had to execute his catch perfectly which he did in a superb manner.
The next wicket was of Henry Nicholls and that had a lot to do with movement of the ball and not just simple swing or seam but the mixture of swing and seam and the placement of the ball. The ball was placed full, and Ishant Sharma bowled it from over the wicket and swinged it towards the batsmen while bowling at a fast speed while angling it, and so that meant that the swing wasn’t as important but rather the fact that the bowl throughout the time it was in air was going straight to the batsman, as a result Nicholls decided to play it by simply presenting the bat’s face and defending it but what Nicholls did not account from was the seam that lead to the ball nipping away a bit. It was a full length delivery, meaning the batsmen had to play it since it was coming towards him initially but what the ball did was that upon pitching, it moved just slightly but enough away from the batsmen to take the edge of the bat and carry on, for a splendid catch by Rohit in the slip cordon. Nicholls did not follow the ball well, and wasn’t able to play the ball’s line due to its slight movement, his shot and the speed on the ball.
Next wicket was the result of Shami changing his length to bowl fuller, and then seaming the ball well, for which BJ Watling was unable to count for at any cost and the ball, as a result of being lower than stump height went to hit the stumps and dislodge the bail. This was the importance of bowling full, firstly the ball seams at a shorter distance from the stumps and also the ball will go and hit the stumps if it is on the right line.
Then came the lunch break, which came of help to the New Zealand side in the way that the Indian bowlers would need to come back after 40 minutes and then bowl, and atleast a couple of loose or misplaced deliveries are bowled as a result , and also the fact that now New Zealand could provide work out its plan even better with proper discussion with Williamson and the new batsman in – Colin de Grandhomme. That break is generally always of respite to the batting side.
SESSION 2
The second session was more about New Zealand lasting the whole session that India taking the 5 wickets to end the New Zealand innings. The 5 wickets that fell again fell in the manner that the wickets in the first session fell, except for the Williamson wicket. For the other 4 wickets, the story was simple, there was good field placement, the batsman was set up, and there was exquisite bowling.
New Zealand started that session with a clear approach which was that New Zealand knew they wouldn’t survive long and had to score runs to take a possible lead. Colin de Grandhomme was the first part of this. He was to bat to his natural style of hitting the ball and scoring runs. His plan was simple, since most of the balls were being bowled at the or close to the body, i.e. the stumps line, if the he was able to hit the ball, and there wasn’t the risk of it hitting the stumps, then he would go for it, and since India allowed him to do that by placing most of their fielders towards the boundary on the leg side, he was able to steal a lot of 1s and 2s and put a small dent in India’s lead. The India fielders could have been a bit closer in the fine leg area.
Helped by the different field set up and de Grandhomme’s batting, Williamsom also started to get going to score runs at a quicker pace and he was successful in doing so. Those first few overs of the second session, i.e. the overs till the time de Grandhomme lasted hurt India a lot, and could have hurt India even further if not for that urge to play a shot by Williamson, a shot which was different from his approach till then as he was trying to hit the ball forward, a ball that was full but not pitched very full. Williamson was trying to hit it but he misjudged the ball and played it to Kohli who was again at the right place, a little wide of where the second slip normally stands.
This was also evidence of the intent of New Zealand, noone was now just sitting and defending as such. The one guy who was, was also trapped well by the Indians. Before Williamson’s wicket, Kyle Jamieson had gotten out. Jamieson had played a very short innings but a valuable innings as he scored 21 runs at a strike of that above 130. He hit the first six of the innings and was just at ease, advantaged a little by his height as well. He also only got out because he fell for the simple bouncer after a six delivery by Shami, which is a common thing and still he fell for it but he was not to blame, as even on that delivery he played a good shot that was just caught by Bumrah at the boundary. Just a little more force and he would have made it cross the boundary most probably, also he faced the previous two bouncers well, and was helped just that tad bit by luck. Taking advantage of his height, he was able to dispatch the good length deliveries with much ease and wasn’t troubled by them, especially as they weren’t swing as such.
And then came Southee who made the difference between the two innings with him scoring a quick 30 runs (remember NZ had a lead of 32 runs in total) He wasn’t out there to just go berserk and also was unable to, as he did not have the advantage Jamieson had. He played at a strike rate of above 60 and scored a decent amount of runs as this time again he was able to just swing the bat well, and score in the forward V as well easily. This was the main point. The lower order batsmen for New Zealand were scoring freely and well, by putting some of their force on the ball as well, and also as they weren’t facing Bumrah or even Ishant as much. The New Zealand side had now picked up a momentum, where helped by their luck, they were easily chipping away. In this, they were helped a lot by Williamson holding one end and taking their innings into the second hour of the second session.
But the the innings came to end but New Zealand had taken a lead of 32 runs.
SESSION 3
The third session. The session where India started their second innings. The most striking point of the second innings was that even with the sun out for a long time, the New Zealand bowlers were getting a lot of swing from early on itself, even though generally the Dukes ball although it does swing, swings more later, and also the fact that Kiwi bowlers were in form from the first ball. India did not get the first 10 overs like they had gotten in their first innings and that was the biggest difference which reflected even on the scorecard as India had a lower run rate as compared to the start of India’s first innings and also lost an early wicket.
The Kiwi bowlers were getting the swing and the seam, hitting the right lengths and bowling the right lines, the perfect and the most deadly combo. India were also on the backfoot with regards to the fact that India were 32 runs behind meaning that whatever India scored, India’s lead was that minus the 32 runs. The Indian batsmen were playing much more cautiously as well at the start, definitely because they want to survive for a long time but were seen to be playing a little behind, meaning their interception point seemed to be closer to the stumps than in the first innings (mainly applies to the two openers), reason unknown since the Kiwis were getting similar swing.
The Kiwi bowlers were able to trap the two openers well and dismissed them but one change seen in Rohit Sharma, as compared to his previous few matches was that he did not give his wicket away by trying to hit the ball and score runs, it was an Umpire’s Call LBW on a very good ball.
THE APPROACH ON DAY 6 (RESERVE DAY)
The approach for New Zealand is similar. Continue the form and dismiss India for as low a score as possible as quickly as possible. India have two possible approaches, which should be based on how the first 15 overs of the day go.
First, for the first hour India needs to have the approach of playing cautiously but trying to score at around 2.5 runs per over and then asses the situation. FOR THE WIN: If India think that they are comfortable, the batsman who are to come in can also survive well, i.e. the bowling does not seem as threatening as it did on Day 3, and that the pitch isn’t a complete batsman’s paradise, India should aim to score at a higher runrate while having one batsman hold one end just for safety. In such an approach, India will need to still bat till Tea, or atleast till the time when less than 45 overs remain while scoring at a run rate of 3 runs per over or above. India need to try and get a lead of 240+ and then declare or maybe if they are like at 240/8 then tell the opposition to take the 2 wickets if they can, but declaration by Tea is necessary.
India will then need to pressurize the batsman while allowing them to try and hit aggressively for runs every 4 overs or so. Since, only about 30 overs will be to be bowled, New Zealand will be unable to reach the score and a draw can take place but with the spinners, and some seam and the fact that NZ can play a bit aggressively every few overs, from India’s point of view, India can try and even take all 10 wickets and win the game. This is the only option that guarantees a result which will not fall in favour of NZ if India go for a result.
FOR A DRAW: India need to bat as long as possible.
All in all, the game is relying on how do the India batsmen bat and there is still a lot left in the Ultimate Test.
|THE ULTIMATE TESTS FINAL TEST BEGINS|
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