NZ ready to put up ‘strong fight’ against ‘accomplished’ Ashwin, Jadeja: Rachin Ravindra

As part of their subcontinent tour, New Zealand is preparing for a challenging match against World Test Championship (WTC) leaders India. They recently played two Tests against Sri Lanka, but their one-off Test against Afghanistan last month in Greater Noida was canceled due to rain.

Bengaluru: Ahead of the three-match Test series against India, Rachin Ravindra feels that facing accomplished spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will be a challenging task for the visitors. However, the batter was confident of putting up a strong fight in the series.

As part of their subcontinent tour, New Zealand are gearing up for the intense battle against World Test Championship (WTC) table toppers India after facing Sri Lanka in two Tests while their one-off Test against Afghanistan was washed out due to rain in Greater Noida last month.

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In the two-Test home series against Bangladesh, the Rohit Sharma-led side defeated the opponents in both matches.

For India, Ashwin is the leading wicket-taker in the current WTC cycle, with 53 scalps in 10 Tests while Jadeja bagged 35 wickets, the third-highest for India after pacer Jasprit Bumrah’s 42 dismissals.

“Obviously, we know how good India are in their own conditions, the quality of their bowlers, the quality of their batters. They’ve grown up in these conditions and it shows how hard it is for a team to come and win here. So it’s difficult. They’ve got consistent bowlers who bowl at an area for a long period of time. I mean, you see the two spinners who play consistently – Ashwin and Jaddu (Jadeja), they’re two very accomplished bowlers. And they can bat too, which makes it a little bit hard. They’re a very good team,” Rachin said in the press conference on Monday.

“We’ll take our learnings. We’ve been here a lot recently, we’ve played a lot of Test matches in India. The group has grown together quite well and we’ve all had that experience, so hopefully we can put together a strong fight,” he added.

New Zealand faced a 0-2 whitewash against Sri Lanka before arriving in India and Rachin rues missing the opportunity to play in Greater Noida to get better acclimatise to the Indian conditions with no practice game in place before the series opener in Bengaluru from Wednesday.

“Yeah, definitely, obviously not being able to play in Noida (against Afghanistan) was a bit disappointing, it would have been a good little build-up. But I think its not often a New Zealand team has had the opportunity to have six subcontinent tests in a row, it’s certainly an amazing opportunity to not just to record wins, it’s more for experience and trying to get better as a player and better as a group,” he said in a press conference.

“Because traditionally, you know, it’s always tough to play in this part of the world, but I think it’s great preparation. Obviously, Sri Lanka and India are different places, different surfaces, but similar in terms of the amount of spin you might play. Sri Lanka are a quality side, especially in their own conditions, and they’ve shown that, they’re up there in the World Test Championship ranking, so for us it was a great Test, we took a lot out of it and learnt a lot. So it’s mostly about seeing how we can play our game and how we can bring that here to India,” he added.

The 24-year-old expressed confidence in his team’s strength which includes the likes of Kane Williamson, Tom Latham, Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell, who have done well at different stages in Indian conditions.

“I guess it’s being true to yourself as a player, I think we’ve got some quality players in our set-up. We’ve got Kane (Williamson), we’ve got Tom Latham, you’ve got Dev (Devon Conway), you’ve got Daryl (Mitchell). You’ve got guys who approach the game differently, and I think it’s for us doing what we do well in our own capacity, you know,” he said.

“Dev’s very good at reverse sweeping, sweeping, you know, Daryl’s same. That doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, someone else has to do the exact same thing. So it’s for us to find our own method and being comfortable with that and trusting that, I guess. And I think that’s probably going to be important over the next few Tests,” Rachin added.