Henry lauds New Zealand’s ‘outstanding’ day

New Zealand were pleasantly surprised to find some help for their quicks in the pitch at Eden Gardens, fast bowler Matt Henry has said. Henry took three wickets on a day New Zealand kept India to 239 for 7. This could still be a big total given India’s spinners and the absence of Kane Williamson, but it was overall quite a satisfactory day for New Zealand considering they had lost the toss.

“It was a fair wicket,” Henry said. “Obviously, coming over here you probably don’t expect conditions like that at the start of the day so we knew we had to make the most of that, especially being put in with the ball. It was always going to be tough work through that middle period when it would become a good surface. We had to find ways to put pressure on when we weren’t taking wickets and as a bowling group that is a box we ticked today.”

Before they put that pressure through dry bowling, though, New Zealand had to make sure they used the pitch that would have sweated in the preceding days because of the overcast skies and the covers on it. “We knew it was important with the new ball to take advantage of it because the wicket had been under covers for a long time so that was going to be a crucial part of the game,” Henry said. “The way we went about our work today was outstanding. We knew we had to make sure we controlled the run rate because it is very tough in these conditions to take wickets.

“Moving forward from there it was just important to maintain those …

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