New Zealand have to bowl better to compete with India, says Luke Ronchi

With a handful of days to go for the start of the first Test between India and New Zealand, Luke Ronchi feels that the visitors have to bowl much better in order to compete with the Indians. They are already having a tough time during the warm-up match against Mumbai where opener Ronchi has scored a ton in the second innings. However, he feels that more there were more positives to take out from the tour match rather than negatives and says that the Ranji team showed them the way to play in these conditions.

The right-handed batsman played his last Test back in May-June last year and is primarily in India as a backup wicket-keeper, but with the century he might be in contention of a possible berth in the playing XI.

Getting used to the pitch which changed over the course of three days was an important lesson learnt from the match admits Ronchi. As per the reports of Hindustan Times, he said, “I think getting used to the wicket which was changing over three days (was one takeaway). It was deteriorating a bit with guys facing more spin towards the end and ball doing a few different things. Mumbai bowled and batted really well.”

“I think we got some learnings from that. When they took us on in the final session yesterday, we were not able to pull off our game plans. There are a lot of positives, couple of little negatives to sort out. We have a big series coming up and there will ups and downs,” added the New Zealand opener.

The first Test match between the two teams will be played at the Green Park, in Kanpur followed by another two 5-day matches and a 5-match ODI series. The one aspect every visiting in India is worried about is how to tackle the spinners in the sub-continent. But Ronchi feels that Mumbai showed exactly the way to play spin. Regarding the matter, he said, “Spin is a big thing and they took our spinners down later in the day.

“They showed us what can be done on these wickets. They played brilliantly. We got to play better to bowl teams like these out and even better if we want to beat India.”

Not sure whether he is going to take part in the Kanpur Test, the opener feels that his selection is entirely dependent on the team management.