James Franklin confident of avoiding defeat

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After a decent morning’s work on Friday, New Zealand would have been pretty satisfied and looking forward to their batting innings.

However, R. Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha systematically and clinically destroyed that notion. The only bright spot for New Zealand in a dismal batting show was the level-headed, mature display of batting by James Franklin.

The all-rounder top-scored for his side with an unbeaten 43 and on the fourth day, if push comes to shove, the Kiwis would be looking to him once again to save the day.

Franklin said he focused not on what was not working for him and instead, concentrated on what he could do.

“Obviously there were always going to be some balls that were going to spin past me. I was just trying not to worry about them too much,” said Franklin.

Having already lost one wicket in Martin Guptill, and with two days of play left, New Zealand are staring down the barrel, but Franklin says they have a better idea of the wicket now than they did in the first innings.

“Hopefully, we will rectify a few mistakes we made in the first innings and look to stay a lot longer at the crease. It’s a pretty simple formula: just occupy the crease and salvage a draw,” added Franklin.

On the Indian spinners, while admitting they were good, Franklin said he wasn’t too worried about them.

“They are obviously good spinners and did well in home conditions. They had a lot of fielders around the bat in the first innings and in all likeliness, they will do so again. We can’t let that worry us too much. We have to just concentrate on our own game.”