Kolkata : He may not have the same flair as MS Dhoni, but there’s no denying Wriddhiman Saha is fast becoming an integral player in the five day game format for India. Saha’s solidity behind the stumps was never questioned, but his consistency with the bat in recent matches for the country can lend some solidity to lower order Indian batting. The Bengal stumper notched up his third fifty in Test cricket in front of a sparse home crowd at Eden Gardens on Saturday. Wriddhiman was part of two crucial partnerships with Jadeja for the eighth wicket (41) and later with Shami (35) for the last wicket. Later at the close of days play, Saha elaborated that his focus was to build short partnerships.
“The plan was to focus on short partnerships. We thought 270-280 will be a good score initially then try for 300. Thankfully that happened with Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja) and (Mohammed) Shami,” Saha told reporters following the end of the day’s play at the Eden Gardens here.
The top order of the Indian batting line up did find the going tough against some quality bowling from the Kiwis. But Saha held forte towards the end to take the total past 300 runs. According to him, keeping in mind the seaming wicket, the need of the hour was to hit some boundaries.
We needed to play our shots otherwise, we won’t get past 260. So our plan was to score off boundaries. If we would have gone for singles the score probably would have been around 280. That was the plan,” Saha remarked.
The wicketkeeper did find himself in some sort of concern batting under the lights. “After the rain, we got more movement. Vision was blurred under lights. We got three wickets in the final session and hopefully we can continue the good streak.”
Saha also praised India’s bench strength. “We have great bench strength. As far as Bhuvi playing in this match is concerned, the team is formed according to who fits in for that match. Bhuvi was needed here so he played and he bowled outstandingly.”
Lastly, commenting on his innings today, Saha said, “This was like any other innings. This was normal. The team is more important and I am happy the team went past 300 and I could contribute.”