“I mean in India it’s pretty challenging as a bowler these days, like we’ve seen in the recent series [against West Indies], 250 getting chased down – who wants to be a bowler? – but he might like it out here a little better.”
India captain Shreyas Iyer felt Bhuvneshwar’s return to the T20I side would give his team a boost, adding experience to their pace department.
“Bhuvi, like you said, brings a lot of experience in the team,” Iyer said. “That was something we lacked, especially after the IPL we had a lot of new bowlers. If you see Bhuvi’s career graph in the last two years, he’s won the IPL also so he knows very well how to dominate this format.”
“Obviously he [Sooryavanshi] didn’t play [in India’s last series against West Indies], but I’ve seen first-hand how good he is [in] the IPL,” Santner said. “The power at the top that India have, Sanju and Abhishek have done really well, so I think it’s one of those things where we know how good he is, and then the guys who are playing are also doing very well.
“I think he has a huge part to play for India, whether it’s this series or not, but in the future. If he does get a crack this series, we’ve seen what he can do, and guys have found it quite hard to stop him. I know England, in the series away, went quite short and hard at a lot of the Indian batters, but I think we’ve seen in the IPL how aggressive he can be, so we’ve got some plans for him if he happens to play.”
Santner expects a range of conditions to be in play across the five T20Is, and highlighted how dangerous India can be on flatter pitches. He hoped the large outfield at Hagley Oval would give the bowlers some respite on Thursday.
“First things first, both teams will need to assess conditions,” he said. “If there’s a little bit in it, it’s harder to go extremely hard, but we know India have shown when it’s flat and good they’re very, very tough to stop.
“So one thing here, there’s slightly bigger boundaries as well, which is more in the bowlers’ favour, but again, if it’s flat and it’s not doing a hell of a lot, we’re going to have ways of slowing India down, because we know when it’s flat and small they are very, very good.
“If there is something in the pitch for the seamers to start, it’s obviously nice, but throughout the series we’re going around the country, they’re not all going to be green seamers and flying around, so both teams are going to have to adapt quickly to the conditions and then play accordingly.”
Santner knows he is up for an especially difficult challenge as a left-arm spinner coming up against an India line-up full of left-hand batters.
“It is challenging,” he said. “Everywhere you go, there is – I wouldn’t say in your favour – but there’s always something in New Zealand. You can get a bit of bounce, here [at Hagley Oval] there’s slightly a bigger side [of the ground], so you can kind of use that a little bit.
“But it’s less of trying to spin the ball hard into the slot and hoping it does something. There might be a little bit less of that, there might be [more of] being smart with trying to get in and out of overs and build pressure through ones or dots.
“But I think it’s going to change. You get to Wellington, dimensions again are different – short square [boundaries], longer straight, so that changes the way you bowl. Hamilton is quite small, and Eden Park is small as well. So throughout the series, as a bowler, as a bowling unit, we’re going to have to be smart in the way you go about it.”
