New Zealand came up with a good performance with the bat and thanks to Ross Taylor's aggressive hundred and Kruger van Wyk's solid fifty, were comfortably placed at 328/6 at stumps on Day 1 of the second Test in Bangalore. But left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha felt that the Indians did a good job by picking up 6 wickets on a pitch that was not much of a help to the bowlers.
"Zaheer Khan, Umesh Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin and myself supported each other well to pick wickets. Getting six wickets on a pitch which did not help bowlers is a good boost to the bowlers' confidence," Ojha told reporters at the end of the day's play.
Martin Guptill was put down early by Virat Kohli off Zaheer Khan and the opener went on to score a half-cetury. Ojha said had the catch been taken, it would have been a different story.
"Zak [Zaheer] bowled superbly in his first spell. There was one catch dropped, and if that had been taken then it would have been a different story as at that time the pitch was doing a bit."
Ojha, who picked up four of the six wickets to fall, said he was not surprised when Dhoni asked him to bowl the first over of the match. "I was told before the toss that I will be bowling the first over and I was ready for it. There was some moisture on the wicket in the morning and Dhoni decided to use it to India's advantage by asking me to open the attack."
New Zealand opener Guptill mentioned that the visitors will be looking to score in excess of 400 on Day 2 and put the pressure on India.
"The contest from here on would be interesting if my team put 400-450 on the board and pick a few wickets early on because there is a bit of swing and seam on this wicket. If we do that it will be great," he said.
Guptill said the team came out with a positive frame of mind and that worked well for his side. "Ross (Taylor) showed some excellent footwork. We got some interesting balls early on but we were able to get over it. We got enough boundaries that took the load off us," he said.
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