Morne Morkel fires Rohit Sharma & Co. strict message after batting failure in Pune Test

India National Cricket Team bowling coach Morne Morkel issued a strong message to Rohit Sharma & Co. after their poor show with the bat in the first innings of the ongoing Test match against the New Zealand National Cricket Team.

Morne Morkel was clearly disappointed with India's batting show at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune as they got bowled out for 156 in 45.3 overs.

India batters deliver poor performance yet again

After bowling out the Black Caps for 259, India got the opportunity to bat on day 1 itself. They were off to an absolutely poor start as the skipper Rohit Sharma was once again dismissed by the pacer Tim Southee.

At stumps, India went with 16/1 in 11 overs and were under pressure. Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal started day 2 on a decent note, but they were back in the hut after scoring 30 runs each.

Virat Kohli had high expectations on his shoulders, but he too failed as he got bowled for 1 while facing a full toss from Mitchell Santner.

The heroes of the last match, Rishabh Pant (18) and Sarfaraz Khan (11) bagged low scores, and in the end, all-rounders Ravindra Jadeja (38) and Washington Sundar (18) scored some important runs that helped India reach a respectable total.

India batters were particularly troubled by the left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, who bagged his career-best 7 for 53 and helped New Zealand take a 103-run lead.

You need to score the first innings runs - Morne Morkel

Speaking at the post-day press conference, Morne Morkel sent a strict message to the Indian batters to come up with a better performance in the second innings to make up for the first innings failure.

“I never like to have a punch up between batters and bowlers but, in Test match cricket you need to score the first innings runs,” Morkel told the media during the post-day press conference.

“If we put our hand up, we haven’t been able to do that. There are world-class players in our batting lineup. I know that individually, they’ve got their processes and they know how to go about those things,” he added.

Hopefully, we can iron those mistakes out because it’s costing us at the moment - Morne Morkel

At stumps on day 2, New Zealand were in total control with a lead of 301 runs. Morne Morkel, meanwhile, is hoping that the experienced Indian batting order will perform well in the final innings of the match.

“Hopefully, we can iron those mistakes out because it’s costing us at the moment — not getting the runs on the board — but I’m pretty sure there’s enough experience, enough knowledge amongst them to rectify that,” he added.

“I back the team (to come up) with a strong response in our second innings. I’m excited to see how they bounce back and how they play this situation and the conditions,” he said.

While labeling cricket as a 'funny game' Morne Morkel further stated that they need to back the players and maintain belief as they know the conditions very well and can pull off a miraculous win.

“We have to believe. This game is a funny game. Our guys are attacking players, there’s guys that know these conditions well. Our talk before this game was that we are masters in these conditions, we know how to sum these conditions up,” he said.