Virat Kohli and his men face a searching examination of skill and character as the first Test, beginning on Friday, approaches.
There is grass on this Basin Reserve surface and the New Zealand pacemen will be relentless in their quest for scalps.
However, Neil Wagner, that battering ram, who hustles batsmen with well-directed short-pitched bowling, could miss the first Test since he is awaiting the birth of his child. Matt Henry has been called in as a cover for Wagner.
Kohli was confident that his batsmen would be upto the task. The Indian skipper was also gung-ho about his own pace pack where Ishant Sharma appears to have put fitness troubles behind.
The Indian captain said, “He looked pretty similar to how he was bowling before the ankle injury and was hitting good areas. Really good to see him bowling with pace. He has the experience too.”
Tactically flexible
The Indian team, Kohli said, would be tactically flexible. “We are going to look to adapt to what’s in front of us rather than having a set template.”
Playing in New Zealand had its own challenges but Kohli said his team would focus on its own strengths. “We have to show more patience than our opposition. If the opposition plays the waiting game, we are gonna play the waiting game. If they counter-attack, we have the opportunities to take wickets and score runs [and] vice-versa.”
There is bound to be pressure on the not-too-experienced opening pair of Mayank Agarwal and Prithvi Shah against the moving ball on the greenish track here.
Kohli felt the fairly experienced Mayank understood his game in red-ball cricket and the disciplined mode of batting.
Prithvi, he revealed, had been given the freedom to play his own game. “He is a talented player and we want him to follow his instincts. Look, these guys have no baggage of having failed overseas in the past. A bunch of new guys can play the kind of fearless cricket that can give the whole team confidence.”
Role of the wind
The wind blowing across the Basin Reserve would play a massive role in the outcome, said Kohli. “We have to decide who bowls into the wind, who bowls with it. If the breeze is blowing across the stadium, then who is more effective bowling the in-swingers or the out-swingers.”
The wind would impact the batsmen too, Kohli said, “The ball might not travel in the air a lot more when you are hitting against the wind. So you need to be prepared to run a lot more. It’s something we learnt the last time.”
Kohli elaborated, “And if you have a light bat, then you are in trouble. You need to be firm with your stance and where your bat is, because it can really swing around. I experienced it the last time”
Intense and fit guys
On the New Zealand team, Kohli said, “They are intense and very, very fit guys and they can keep going all day and test your patience, really skilled with what they do as both bowlers and batsmen and are obviously brilliant fielders. So they don’t give you a lot within the game to sort of bank on or pounce on. They could bounce back from the 0-3 reverse in Australia.”
Talking about the Test championship, Kohli noted, “The Test Championship, as an ICC tournament, should be right up there. All the other tournaments, for me, start under that.
“This is going to be the biggest of them all. And every team wants to make it to the final at Lord’s.”
Even in these conditions, Kohli spoke about the advantages of having a world-class spinner in the attack.
India was close to finalising the eleven, he said. From what one gathered, R. Ashwin and Rishabh Pant are likely to play.
