Mitchell Santner out to put Indian batsmen in spot of bother

For about one hour on an overcast Monday morning, Mitchell Santner bowled almost non-stop in one of the three nets given to New Zealand for their training session at the Brabourne Stadium in Cricket Club of India here.

And barring a couple of loose deliveries, the left-arm spinner landed all the balls on almost the same spot for that entire hour-long duration. That spot was on a good length on the off and middle stump of a right-hander from around the wicket. The area moved slightly towards the bowler's right for a southpaw from over the wicket.

The likes of Kane Williamson, Martin Guptill and Tom Latham swept, ran down the wicket and even slogged him in the nets, but Santner's spot remained fixed. He didn't get the ball to deviate much, but neither did he deviate much from his zone.

And going into the three-match ODI series against India starting here on Sunday, the 25-year-old hopes that remains his biggest asset to tie the mighty hosts' battling line-up down.

"I just try to keep it pretty simple," Santner said here on Monday. "Try and keep the ball off the Indian batsmen. Bowl the ball reasonably quick on the surface and make the batsmen make a mistake. If you get a few dots and build pressure that way, you can hopefully get a few wickets. That's what I'll be trying to do."

In the last ODI series between these two teams played in India, Santner picked up four wickets in 46 overs across five games. More pertinently, though, his average economy rate throughout those five outings was 4.00.

Compare this to the two Australian spinners' economy rate in their recently-concluded 1-4 ODI series loss, Adam Zampa 6.98 and Ashton Agar 6.57, and it reflects the different kind of challenge that the Indians will be up against the leader of Kiwis' spin attack.

One man who completely took the Aussie spinners to the cleaners was Hardik Pandya, promoted to No. 4 by head coach Ravi Shastri with an aim to attack the tweakers in the middle overs.

The Pandya vs Zampa mini-battle in the previous series will change to Pandya vs Santner over the next few weeks, and the latter has a plan set to counter the threat from India's most recent potent weapon.

"He tends to hit down the ground very good. So I guess it's key to take the length off him. And maybe be happy with singles. He is a very good player and can hit. I saw him hit Zampa for three sixes in an over (first ODI in Chennai). So once he hits one, he wants to keep going.

"If you can tie him down or make him hit singles, and then hopefully he will try to play a big shot and go for a ball that's not quite there. But yes, he's a very good player and striker. We have to beware," the Kiwi said.

Santner – whose approach and action mirrors that of Vettori – already has an upper hand over Pandya, having dismissed him twice, once in the 4th ODI of the previous series and the other time in the 2016 World T20 opener. In that match in Nagpur, Santner ripped through the heart of the Indian batting, picking up 4-11 in four overs to shoot the hosts out for 79 in a 127-run chase.

"I think on that day, we did keep it pretty simple, tried to bowl relatively quick. We didn't try and give them too much and let them make a mistake. We can learn from that experience and take it into this series," Santner said.

'Watched a lot of Axar, Jadeja'

Mitchell Santner said he has watched a lot of videos of the bowling of Indian left-arm spinners Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja to get a cue on how to best bowl on Indian surfaces. "Especially on wickets that offer a little bit, I watched a lot of Axar Patel and Jadeja. They just try to bowl very consistent and good areas and wait for the batsmen to hit a big shot and get out or run past one. I've taken a little bit of footage from there," he said.