Hyderabad: Ravichandran Ashwin produced a career-best 12-wicket match haul as a merciless India relied on the spinners to crush New Zealand by an innings and 115 runs, taking a 1-0 lead in the two-match Test series here on Sunday.
New Zealand’s batting collapsed yet again as they lost the last seven wickets for 26 runs to get bundled out for a meagre 164 in the second innings, shortly after the tea break to give the hosts an easy victory with more than a day to spare.
Ashwin’s match figures of 12 for 85 is the best by an Indian in a Test match against New Zealand, eclipsing S Venkatraghavan’s 12 for 140.
The Tamil Nadu spinner foxed the inexperienced Kiwi batsmen by extracting a lot of turn and bounce from the strip as he capped 6/54 to follow up his first innings tally of 6/31.
Ojha returned with figures of three for 48 to lend a fine support at the other end as the spin duo shared nine wickets between them exposing the Black Caps’ vulnerability to play spin.
Kiwi skipper Ross Taylor said that they will have to learn the art of tackling spinners going into the second Test at Bangalore.
“We couldn’t sustain ourselves, the Indian bowling showed us a masterclass. We need to learn how to play Ashwin. We would be a lot better side come Bangalore,” Taylor said. (PTI)
SCORECARD
India 1st innings 438 all out
NZ 1st innings 159 all out
NZ 2nd innings (following on):
M Guptill lbw b Ojha 16
B McCullum lbw b Yadav 42
K Williamson c S’wag b Ojha 52
R Taylor b Ashwin 7
D Flynn lbw b Ashwin 11
J Franklin c S’wag b Ashwin 5
K van Wyk lbw b Ashwin 13
D Bracewell c Kohli b Ojha 1
J Patel not out 6
T Boult c Sehwag b Ashwin 0
C Martin lbw b Ashwin 0
Extras: (B-1, LB-10) 11
Total: (all out, 79.5 overs) 164
Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-98, 3-105, 4-138, 5-142, 6-145, 7-148, 8-160, 9-164
Bowling Ojha 28-9-48-3 Khan 13-5-17-0, Yadav 10-1-32-1, Ashwin 26.5-9-54-6, Raina 2-1-2-0