Kanpur, Nov 28 (IANS): New Zealand fielding coach Luke Ronchi said on Sunday that all three results were possible in the ongoing first Test between India and New Zealand if the tourists bat with good intent. He admitted that it was tough for his team to apply pressure on the Indian team after reducing them to 51/5 on day four at the Green Park Stadium. At stumps on day four, New Zealand were 4/1, with 280 runs left to chase on the final day with nine wickets in hand on Monday.
"Obviously, it was quite difficult for us to take wickets and put a bit of pressure on their batters. But I think leading into tomorrow, all three results are possible for if we bat with some good intent and make the most of opportunities to score, then we certainly believe we can chase it down but also, from the Indian point of view, they will be going in full of confidence in stopping us from doing that," said Ronchi in the virtual press conference.
"So, there is not a lot whole of turn in the surface and many expect the surface to play and hold up the way it has. But there is a little bit of variable bounce, so that will be the main thing I think," added Ronchi, who played for New Zealand before venturing into coaching the national team.
The current World Test Championship holders have their task cut out in achieving an uphill task as no touring team has chased more than 276 in the fourth innings since West Indies did so in 1987 in New Delhi. Ronchi, while replying to a question from IANS, believes that staying positive will be the key for his batters to do well in acing the chase.
"It's all about staying positive. It's more about being defensive and having attacking sort of options to know if the Indian batters sort of miss wherever they want to bowl, you score and when they bowl good balls, we can defend them. It's also about going out there with a positive attitude and mindset and that can bring us closer to chasing the total that we need to."
"I think that's a massive part of playing cricket in India. The more you sit back and think of the balls that are going to make errors, more often no' they don't. We got to actually take the game to them a little bit more, be positive with our movements, scoring options, and rotating strike. That will help us a long way in chasing the game down or batting as long as we need to tomorrow anyway."
Ronchi revealed that he hadn't spoken to opener Will Young about not taking the review on time, resulting in not overturning his lbw dismissal against Ravichandran Ashwin just an over before stumps. After being given out by a delivery which kept low, Young took a long time to consult his opening partner Tom Latham in taking a review.
Young pressed for the 'T' signal but by then, the 15-second time period was over and review was denied. The hesitancy in taking the review quickly cost Young and New Zealand as the ball was shown missing the leg-stump.
"I haven't spoken to Young about the situation. From our point of view, we were a bit disappointed. But also, when we look up on the big screen with the time, he did it after the time had run out. Obviously, it came at a time we don't want to be losin' wickets and it's quite tense. But, if you look at the whole situation from our point of view, a bit disappointment but in order to understand that he did actually did tell it up after the timer had finished," concluded Ronchi.