India vs New Zealand: What went wrong for Ajinkya Rahane-led India in 1st Test match?

India vs New Zealand 1st Test ended in an exciting draw with the final day's play called off early due to poor light condition. While India seemed to have pulled off a victory on the final day, New Zealand have Rachin Ravindra and Ajaz Patel put up a great fight to deny Team India talking 1-0 win in the series.  With both teams heading to Mumbai to play the second Test, we take a look back at things that did not work in Ajinkya Rahane led Team India's favour in India vs New Zealand 1st Test.

India vs New Zealand 1st Test: Problems India had during the match

With no Rohit Sharma or KL Rahul at the top, the onus was on Shubman Gill and Mayank Agarwal to give a solid start at the top. The openers however failed to get going in both innings putting pressure on the middle order. Shubman Gill scored a half-century in the first innings (53 runs), however, he failed to get going in the second innings. scoring just one run. Mayank Agarwal on the other hand scored 13 runs in the first innings while in the second innings he could only score 17 runs.  

With spinners contributing towards India's performance in India vs New Zealand 1st Test, lack of wickets from pacers will also worry Team India heading into the second Test. Experienced pacer Ishant Sharma failed to pick up a single wicket in both innings, while Umesh Yadav could only pick up 2 wickets in 2 innings.

Failure of Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara with the bat is another headache for Team India heading into the second Test. Both the cricketer did contribute with the bat in the 1st innings scoring 26 runs (Pujara) and 35 runs (Rahane) respectively, however they failed to get big runs in the second innings which only piles more pressure on both the batsman. It will be interesting to see if one of the two players will be dropped for the 1st Test.

Another thing that went wrong for Team India was their timing of declaration. The last unbeaten partnership added just 67 runs in 20.4 overs especially when the runs were scored at a run rate of 2.4 an over, India saw this as the best chance to try and get the result without giving New Zealand a chance to make a comeback into the match.