India have been embarrassed on the first day of the first Test against New Zealand with the wannabe world champions rolled for a paltry 46, their lowest ever total in an innings on home soil.
Rohit Sharma’s side started poorly when the captain was out for two in the seventh over at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday and it was a procession of low scores afterwards with five ducks recorded along the way.
With the stadium lights on under dark clouds, India equalled their second most ducks in a Test innings after the opening day was washed out by rain.
Virat Kohli came and went without scoring, one of Will O’Rourke’s victims in his spell of 4-22 with Matt Henry leading the way with stunning figures of 5-15.
Indian keeper Risabh Pant’s 20 and opener Yashasavi Jaiswal’s 13 were the only double-figure contributions with no other player scoreing more than four.
After Kohli followed Sharma back to the pavilion, India were 2-9 and that became 3-10 when Sarfaraz Khan also failed to trouble the scorers.
From 3-31, they suffered a monumental collapse to lose 7-15 as O’Rourke and Henry extracted enough seam movement to find the edge of the bat with regularity.
Henry racked up his 100th Test wicket when he dismissed Kuldeep Yadav to a diving catch in the gully by sub fielder Michael Bracewell.
The series heads to Pune and Mumbai after this Test.
It is terrible timing for India as they gear up for their five-match series in Australia where they are aiming to knock the world champions off their perch after losing to Pat Cummins’ team at last year’s World Test Championship final.
India were famously bowled out for 36 in Adelaide in 2020 and Cricket Australia could not resist putting out a dig on social media about their latest batting collapse.
It was India’s third-lowest Test total of all time, only just surpassing the 36 they made in Australia and a feeble 42 in England 50 years ago.
India’s previous lowest score at home was 62, also against New Zealand at Mumbai in 2021.
To make matters worse, New Zealand cruised past their total without losing a wicket before Tom Latham departed for 15 with the score on 67 as Devon Conway blazed his way to a half-century with seven fours and two sixes in just 54 balls.