New Zealand’s chances of saving the first Test look dismal at the end of the penultimate day’s play here but bowling coach Shane Jurgensen would not concede defeat yet.
“We made some adjustments today. I think like that last partnership towards the end today, we’ve just got to keep fighting. That’s the way we play cricket, we have to fight to the end.
“There are still six wickets to go and if you get a good partnership going, and we saw that today when India batted you can score at a decent rate, and more importantly you can bat for time. That’s our goal, to fight for as long as we can, have a good start in the morning and really try and fight as far as we can.”
How to tackle India’s quality spinners? “Some turn, some don’t and some jump. It’s just a matter of not feeling the pressure and starting to accept the challenge and play with a smile on your face.
“What a great opportunity it is tomorrow to come out on the fifth day. If we attack it like that it’s our best opportunity to get through.”
How did the New Zealand camp assess M. Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara’s partnership? “Obviously they got a few boundaries and batted really well. These are conditions the Indian players are very familiar with and we saw how well they can bat in their conditions.
“Today we showed a much improved performance with the ball. All we can focus on is those positives. Credit to the Indian batsmen. There were times where we bowled well and created pressure but they are very experienced, wore us down and played well.”
Jurgensen praised R. Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, “They basically create a lot of pressure. They make you play the ball consistently, they bowl straight and they are very experienced. It’s shown in the little adjustments they make, positions on the crease, angles, field placements, they are obviously very good at that.
“Like we saw with their batters in their conditions, we saw the way they bowled in their conditions. We have to take the positives out of the way we bowled today and learn from that.”
On Mitchell Santner learning to bowl the straighter one like Jadeja, the New Zealand coach said, “He is a young bowler and one thing about him is he learns pretty quickly and he is pretty talented.
“He can bat and bowl, and we’ve seen him run around in the field. He’ll make the adjustments, he is young bowler and I think it is something he’ll certainly look to do in the future.
“We saw him bowl a few like that [today]. Jadeja is bowling quite well at the moment, but from my experiences in this game, tomorrow is a new day. We’ll see what happens then.”