India vs New Zealand 1st Test, Day 5 Highlights: Kiwis earn hard-fought draw in Kanpur
That brings us to the end of our coverage of the first Test between India and New Zealand in Kanpur. The caravan moves to the western part of the country, with Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium hosting the second and final Test starting four days from now. It was a Test befitting the two finalists of the inaugural World Test Championship as the two sides fought tooth-and-nail till the very last ball on the final day, and ultimately ended up sharing the spoils for this game.
We hope you enjoyed our live coverage of the game. For now, this is Amit Banerjee signing off.
Shreyas Iyer is the Player of the Match
Iyer: It’s a great feeling, but if we won the game it could have been the icing on the cake. The wicket was still intact. My mindset was just to play the sessions. People say I’m very flamboyant and don’t control my instincts, but this time I decided to play for the team. It really helped the way Ashwin, Jadeja and Saha contributed. I am really proud of the way we turned things around. I’m really happy with the overall performance of the team. Pressure is always there. They got off to a great start, played two sessions very positively. Once we got a sniff, we saw that as a moment to attack, and we made the best use of the situation.
Ajinkya Rahane, India captain: Not really. I tried my best. They played really well throughout the game. But I thought the way we came back was great. We wanted to get that partnership going, we lost four-five wickets quickly. We were looking to bowl five-six overs in the end. I don’t think we’d have done anything different. It was about the light. As the fielding you want to bowl more overs. As a batting team, you don’t. It was all about rotating the bowlers, and they bowled really well. First of all, Im really happy for Shreyas. The way he worked on his game, his record in First-Class cricket is really good. Virat obviously is coming in the next game, and we have to wait and see. I won’t make any comments.
Kane Williamson, New Zealand captain: As we’ve seen throughout this Test, it’s been touch and go with the light. The Indian side are a formidable one, and they were on top for the most part. We just hung in there till the end. Given their quality bowling attack, we knew it was a lot of hard work. Lots of fantastic experiences today. Really good experiences today. We saw the emotions of a really good Test match. Was a great game overall. The two fast bowlers that we played were outstanding for us. Kept us in the game for long periods for time. Also the way the guys adjusted with the bat as well. But know we get to Mumbai on a different surface, and will prepare accordingly.
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