Surprised by pitch, says Luke Ronchi

New Zealand middle-order batsman Luke Ronchi on Saturday admitted that India’s lower-order fightback has made all the difference in the second cricket Test and said that his side should learn this art from the home team batsmen quickly to stay alive in the match.

New Zealand are staring at a series defeat with their tails up at 128/7 in their first innings at stumps on the second day in reply to India’s 316.

“They (India) are making runs at the end of the innings, which had made a difference. On the day, they were 239/7 overnight and then they made 300-plus, that’s a big chunk of runs from the last three wickets,” Ronchi said as the visitors ended the day 188 runs behind with three wickets in hand.

“That is something we have to improve on to stay in this Test, or in this series even, going forward. Hopefully tomorrow, we can do the same thing with our tail, make some runs and they’ll be very valuable runs in the situation we are in.”

India also had just three wickets in hand when they resumed the day but Wriddhiman Saha’s gutsy 54 not out took the team to 316 before Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 5/33 gave them a firm grip in their bid to seal the series 2-0 here.

The grass cover on the Eden pitch was a pleasant surprise for the Kiwis and Ronchi said they still fell short with Saha reviving India’s innings.

“A lot of us were quite surprised when we saw the grass on the wicket.

The spinners have not turned it as much as we thought. Jadeja was bowling stump-to-stump and getting balls to skid but I guess a lot of people would not have expected the seam bowlers to take as many wickets as they have through the Test,” said Ronchi.