Trent Boult reveals New Zealand's ploy to halt Virat Kohli in his tracks

As New Zealand take on India in the first Test at Wellington, the visitors seemed to have a hard time after having dominated the format completely in their home season. After being all out for 165 in the first innings, Captain Kohli & Co. suffered a major blow as the Blackcaps' tail-enders stormed their team to gain a 184-run lead.

Skipper Virat Kohli also failed to impact and lead the side from the front as he was dismissed early in both the innings. The skipper scored 2 runs in the first innings before losing his wicket to Kyle Jamieson and then fell to Trent Boult in the second innings after scoring just 19. 

The Short-Ball Ploy

Blackcaps' pace spearhead Trent Boult at the end of the third day revealed the teams' ploy to get the Indian skipper out early. Boult revealed that in order to restrict Kohli from getting a good start, he used the shorter ball ploy to keep the Indian skipper away from the ball. The speedster also lauded debutant Kyle Jamieson and credited him for bowling an amazing spell to Kohli, restricting the Indian skipper from getting to a racing start. 

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Trent Boult at the end of the third day said, "In terms of Virat, I think, he likes to feel the bat on the ball like a couple of their guys. And definitely almost, we miss he hits. And he hits it well and gets away with boundaries and stuff like that, so from our point of view, we were probably just trying to dry that up, and for me personally, I thought using the wicket and the shorter ball was a good plan in being able to control his run-rate, so yeah, it's nice to draw the error out of him, but I think the way Kyle Jamieson has been bowling the whole match, but that spell that he bowled to him, not letting him get away on to a racing start was a big part of it."

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New Zealand in the driver's seat

New Zealand were bundled out for 348 after Colin de Grandhomme (43), as well as tail-enders Kyle Jamieson and Trent Boult, made vital contributions lower down the order with scores of 44 and 38 respectively. In reply, India lost the wicket of Prithvi Shaw early but Mayank Agarwal batted beautifully. He scored a half-century and looked solid out in the middle.

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However, the visitors lost the prized wickets of Agarwal and skipper Virat Kohli post-tea which opened up the floodgates for the hosts in this Test match. Trent Boult rattled the Indian top-order with three vital wickets including that of Kohli.

At the end of Day 3, India's scorecard read 144/4 with Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari unbeaten on 25 and 15 respectively as Kohli & Co. still trail by 39 runs.

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