How did he do it? Some cricketing smarts as well as watching Washington Sundar when the Indian offie was bowling. “I tend to do that a lot in white-ball cricket – change the pace,” Santner told the media on Friday after his career-best figures of 7/53 (he had never before had a four-wicket haul in Tests). “I think today we kind of spoke about that kind of just under 90 kph. (It) looked like it was spinning and then for a period there when you went over the top, it was actually bouncing a lot so we spoke about maybe going a little bit slower. But I just think at the start it was (about) kind of (bowling) fast into it and then it kind of changed as the day went on with the pitch and I think Washi (Washington Sundar) did that as well.”
Varying pace comes naturally for Santner because of the primacy of his white-ball skills. When queried whether he had used that transferability of skills from the shorter formats to the longest format, he replied in the affirmative.
“Yeah, through the second half of my spell where we found out that change of pace was working,” he said. “Some would spin, some would skid, some would stay down, trying to play with the angles of the crease as well and land it in a similar spot. Have watched Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja) and (R) Ashwin do that here over the years. That’s what we tried to do.”
If Friday’s lunch was Santner’s opening act in his own play, Saturday’s lunch was piece de resistance. The hosts were going along swimmingly well when the Wellington-born spinner put the brakes. Pressed into service in the fourth over after a rapid start, he first induced Rohit Sharma’s inside edge for a simple catch at forward short-leg.
Even though Yahasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill were going at well over six per over, it felt like a ball would arrive with both their names on it from Santner. He first nipped out the right-hander, this time the outside edge going to first slip. He had once again varied his pace, this time a lot faster and not much flight.
