A familiar foe brews the perfect storm for India

An all-too-familiar collapse against left-arm spin saw India hurtling towards their first series loss at home in 12 years. The Pune pitch, a black soil one, saw Mitchell Santner exposing some weaknesses that have haunted India a few times in the past. In the last three years in home Tests, India have conceded five-wicket hauls to Ajaz Patel, Matthew Kuhnemann, Tom Hartley, and now Santner.

On this surface, where there was some turn from a good length and straighter lines, like in some previous instances, the threat of the left-arm spinner increases. For, the stumps are kept in play constantly with a bit of unpredictable turn. The straighter ones too become a threat.

Today, Virat Kohli had walked out with a slightly open stance as he encountered left-arm spin straight-up. Before him, Shubman Gill had been out LBW on the front foot, after surviving a similar shout on umpire's call earlier. Kohli ended up playing all around a tossed up ball, which was nearly a full toss to be bowled and set the cat amongst the pigeons. This was the 10th time that Gill and Kohli have succumbed to left-arm spin in Tests in Asia over the last three years. The numbers below for India's regular right-handers against left-arm spin points to dismal returns over a substantial sample size.

In a bid to counter this threat, India had peppered their batting line-up with left-handers. Even Rishabh Pant's elevation to No. 5 in Test cricket had this thought behind it. And, the move had started to work. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Pant and Jadeja all averaged over 75 against left-arm spin over the last three years. Additionally, KL Rahul and Sarfaraz Khan had covered over some of these fallibilities, with both averaging close to 45 against this type of bowling. But Friday had all the elements of a perfect storm.

After Gill and Kohli, Sarfaraz succumbed to pressure, lofting Santner to mid-off while New Zealand's ploy to bring in Glenn Phillips' off-spin worked wonders against the left-handers. He delivered on the match-up, having Jaiswal caught at slip and later bowling Pant with one that skidded on.

Match-ups aren't traditionally big in Test cricket. However, increasingly with batters openly admitting to being consciously aggressive, the jargon is finding its own place in the format. Even Mitchell Santner, a T20 specialist, otherwise confessed that he had used some of those trade-tricks enroute to his seven-fer. Santner's wickets came in varied speed ranges, from the mid 70kph mark against the tail-enders like Jasprit Bumrah and Akash Deep to nearly 90kph when he got Jadeja and Ashwin LBW. There was smart use of the wide angles too like the ones that got Kohli and Bumrah.

"I think I tend to do that a lot in white ball cricket, change the pace. Today we spoke about that just. Under 90kph [delivery] looked like it was spinning and then for a period there, when you went over the top, it was actually bouncing a lot. So we spoke about maybe going a little bit slower but I just think, you know, at the start I was kind of fast into it and then it kind of changes as the day went on with the pitch," he said, and pointed to another T20 specialist turned Test-returnee who bagged a 7-fer in the Test. "Washy [Washington Sundar] did that as well, he did that very well, you know, first I think it was 95-ish and then it's the variation to keep the batters guessing."

It wasn't dissimilar to what Ashwin and Jadeja have mastered and done a number over numerous opponents in the past. Helping Santner along the way here in the subcontinent was Rangana Herath, who has been a spin bowling consultant with the New Zealand team. "I think he was a master of that kind of changing pace and that guile. Back home it might be kind of that 45 seam majority of the time, which I get some bounce [with] but over here it's playing with the seam angle a little bit more and, you know, getting one to stay down or one to bounce up," said Santner.

India's methods to counter this was a mix of old-school and new-age. Kohli and Gill were tied down in defence, unable to rotate the strike around too much before finding the ball that had their name on it. Sarfaraz and Pant tried to counter-punch but fell short on execution, leaving the team eventually conceding a decisive 103-run first-innings lead. The methods were a far-cry from how New Zealand managed their runs in the first innings in particular. Against spread-out fields, their top-order stitched together vital partnerships as India's spin trio took their time to adjust to the right pace on the surface.

"One of the reasons why they're on top of this game at the moment as well. They're creating pressure with the ball, they're putting our bowlers under, you know, under pressure by sweeping well, reverse sweeping well," mentioned Morne Morkel, India's bowling coach.

India are already looking at a chase in excess of 300 in the fourth innings, which has only been successfully done once before in Test history in the country. A cure for their batting malady is unlikely to come that quick, and instead trigger some tough questioning internally, as a rare series loss at home beckons.

(Stats inputs from Deepu Narayanan)