New Zealand further tightened their grip over proceedings on Day Two of the first Test in Kanpur, amassing 152 for 1 before the rain arrived to bring an early end to the day. Tom Latham and Kane Williamson were the lynchpins to the visitors fine showing with the bat, both scoring impressive fifties to put pressure on India.
The Indian bowlers toiled hard the whole day, but barring Umesh Yadav, who nipped Martin Guptill in front in the opening session, none of them could add anything on the wicket column as Latham and Williamson combined well to give their side the advantage.
It looked as if the Indian spinners were slowly coming back into the game towards the end of the post-Lunch session with many deliveries turning sharply, but luck continued to elude them and they finished the day with just the solitary scalp.
Williamson and Latham also became the first overseas pair in over three years to record a century stand on Indian soil.
Here are the stats for the day:
7- Kane Williamson and Tom Latham’s unbeaten stand of 117 runs was the first-century partnership in 7 innings by an overseas batting pair on Indian soil. The last time it happened was in 2013 when David Warner and Ed Cowan put on 139 runs for the first wicket.
6- The hundred run stand between Williamson and Latham was their sixth as a pair in 24 innings. It is now the joined highest number of stands between any New Zealand pair, along with John Wright and Andrew Jones. The former has the same number if hundred-run partnerships with Ross Taylor as well, in 51 innings.
6- It has been six years since New Zealand last had a 100-run partnership for the first wicket in the subcontinent. The last time it happened was also against India in Hyderabad in 2010. Since then the opening pair has averaged 33.61 in nine innings.
192- Kane Williamson’s highest score is 192 in Asian conditions and in 21 innings, has made 4 half centuries and 5 centuries in the sub-continent
4- Today was the fourth consecutive occasion when Martin Guptill failed to notch up a fifty-plus score in a Test innings. The last time he made a half-century was against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo last month.
1-On his maiden innings on Indian soil, Tom Latham stroked his way to a maiden fifty, finishing up on an unbeaten 56 at the end of the second’s day play in Kanpur.
6-In his last 10 Test innings, Williamson has gone past the fifty-plus score on six occasions. He has gone to convert that fifty-plus score into a hundred once against Zimbabwe and fallen in the nineties twice.
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