India finished Day 2 in Christchurch only 97 runs ahead of New Zealand in the second innings.
However, with two capable middle-order batsmen Hanuma Vihari and Rishabh Pant not out overnight, the visitors have enough reason to be optimistic of stretching their second innings score to defendable proportion and not give up on the possibility of a series-levelling win, believes pacer Jasprit Bumrah.
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"We, as a team, want to push it hard and do well but the situation is what it is," Bumrah told reporters. "We have two batsmen left and we would look to push tomorrow as well. We can try and work hard and score as many as we can and we will see how it goes."
"We, as a unit, are very close and we are working hard. We lost more wickets than we wanted to but we don't play the blame game and we try to keep everyone together."
Earlier it was Bumrah and Mohammad Shami who brought India back in the contest, taking seven wickets between them and dismissing New Zealand for 235. The visitors, having posted only a modest first-innings total of 242 on the board, were still able to bag a seven-run lead.
"As a bowling unit, when we bowled, I thought we created a lot of chances," Bumrah said. "We will keep on doing that and creating pressure. We will create enough chances and we could get wickets. We were very happy with that as senior members of the team, we have to bowl long spells and we were up for it."
"On the first day, there was a bit of moisture and because of that when they bowled in the first innings, dents were created," he added. "There was a bit of seam movement for both the teams and bowlers were there in the game and you bowl good areas, you create good pressure. We were also creating a lot of chances and that (dents) could have played a role."
Bumrah bowled his best spell of the tour, focusing more on consistency rather than looking for a wicket every ball, which can happen even to the best when making comeback from an injury.
"I don't look at personal performances as I told you. You look to do the processes right and you look to bowl well. You look to create pressure. Some days, I will get wickets and some days, someone else will. My focus is always on what I could do."
"If there's some problem in my execution and my mindset is not correct, then you address that. You don't focus on the results, you focus on the processes you can control," he added.
(Inputs from PTI)