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Basin Reserve: What Happened the 4 Other Times India Batted FirstBy TheQuint

Indian team captain Virat Kohli out on 2, Cheteshwar Pujara out on 11 off 42 and Ajinkya Rahane's 38-run defiance that’s lasted 122 balls.

Five wickets were lost in the first two sessions as India posted 122/5 vs New Zealand by Tea in the series opener. It began to rain during the break, and the third session on the opening day of the two-match series was washed out.

Safe to say, not much went Virat Kohli’s way since he walked out for the toss at 4 am IST and called it wrong.

But, going by India’s past record at the ground in Test matches, the 122/5 is actually the team’s best Day 1 show (wicket-wise) at the venue of the fixture – the Basin Reserve. India have in fact played seven Test matches at this venue since the first one in 1968. Of them, the team batted first four times and got bowled out on the first day itself on three occasions. On the fourth, they were 9 down at Stumps.

Here’s a detailed look at India’s Test performances at Basin Reserve (when they have batted first).

1. India 220 All Out (Feb, 1976)

Indian skipper Bishan Singh Bedi won the toss and elected to bat first and while the opening pair of Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar put together 40 runs for the first wicket, once the ball was handed to Sir Richard Hadlee the match very quickly turned in the the Kiwis’ favour.

Hadlee alone accounted for the Indian top 4 with Gavaskar going on 22, Vengsarkar sent back on 20, Surinder Amarnath (yes, Mohinder Amarnath’s brother) managing just a 2 and then Gundappa Viswanath getting caught on 4. Hadlee finished the innings with 4 wickets for 14 runs.

Defiance was shown by just one player, Brijesh Patel, who made 81 runs off 248 deliveries. However, once he fell, the team was reduced to 217/7, and the next three wickets fell for just three runs.

India were all out on 220.

2. India 208 All Out (Dec, 1998)

Mohammad Azharuddin scored a century on 26 December 1998 at the Basin Reserve. Apart from him just Sachin Tendulkar scored a 47. The rest of the batting order crumbled without much trouble to the score.

Among the top 4, Sidhu got out on a duck, Jadeja on 10, Dravid also on a duck and Sourav Ganguly on 5. India were 16/4 in 10.2 overs by the time Sachin walked in.

Their collective tormentor was Simon Doull, who picked up the top 7 wickets (for 65) in the Indian batting order, with the exception of Azhar, who remained unbeaten.

New Zealand went on to win the match by 4 wickets and yes, again, India had won the toss and elected to bat first.

3. India 161 All Out (Dec, 2002)

This time, India were forced to bat first by the then Kiwi skipper Stephen Fleming and once again, there was just one lone soldier in the batting unit on Day 1. Following his duck from the last Test outing at the venue, Rahul Dravid made a solid 76 off 173 even as the team got bundled out for 161. Zaheer Khan was the second-highest scorer with 19.

Kiwi bowlers all shared the spoils in this one with Shane Bond and Scott Styris picking 3 wickets each and Tuffy and Oram getting 2 each.

New Zealand won the match by 10 wickets.

4. India 375/9 (Dec, 2009)

India’s best outing to date at this venue had been the 375 made by MS Dhoni’s Indian team on Day 1 back in 2009. India amassed a mammoth 375 with Sachin Tendulkar scoring 62, Harbhajan 60 and Dhoni 52.

The opening pair of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir collaborated for a solid 73 runs even as it was Sachin and Dravid’s 90-run third wicket stand that really set the stage for the 300+ score.

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori had won the toss and elected to field first even and the match ended in a draw.