Luke Ronchi has been one standout batsman for New Zealand on the tour. He adapted to the conditions, partially thanks to his stints in the Indian Premier League. When his main batsmen were struggling to score in the warm-up game against Mumbai, Ronchi scored a century to become an automatic choice in the 11 for the Test series.
He further strengthened his position with 38 and 80 in Kanpur and was looking set for another big score before his stay was cut short to 35 in the second Test here on Saturday.
Many felt that he was hard done by umpire Rod Tucker of Australia when he was adjudged LBW to Ravindra Jadeja. He received a doubtful decision in the first innings of the first Test as well, also against Jadeja by Tucker again.
The 35-year-old right-handed batsman has taken it in his stride. There is nothing that he can do about it anyway. “It’s cricket. I think I got away with one against Jadeja today. You can't complain. It's going to happen a lot of times. You get some good ones, you are going to get away with some. You just turn up and keep going along, keep staying positive and hit the ball like you want to hit the ball, get as many runs as possible. That's how it goes,” Ronchi said at the end of the second day on Saturday.
New Zealand do not look healthy at 128/7, trailing India by 188 runs, and defeat only staring on them. “We just have to come back tomorrow (Sunday), scrape as hard as possible, get as many runs and see what happens from there. We’ll try to bowl India out again, try to chase whatever we are set or try to bat as long to eke out a draw. It's cricket. We didn't play as well as we wanted to today (Saturday),” Ronchi said.
New Zealand bowlers allowed Indian tail to wag, letting them have the psychological advantage of scoring 300-plus. Did it matter at all for New Zealand, especially when they could have dismissed the hosts for under 250? Ronchi said: “I don't think so. Three hundred on that wicket is still a par score. I think India would have wanted more than that. A few guys were batting really well and then they got out. And then unfortunately, we didn't bat as well as we should have. Obviously they bowled well.
“I think from a batting standpoint, we should have made more runs or not lost as many wickets at this point of game. But when they got to 300, I think 300 is still a decent score. I guess if they won the toss and batted first, you'd be pretty happy with 300. So I don’t think it made much of a difference to our mindset. We didn't bat as well as we would have liked today.”
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