Team India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel has admitted that India are on the back foot in the Test series against New Zealand because the batters have failed to do well in the first innings. He, however, backed the experienced line-up to step up with the goods in the second innings in Pune.

Speaking after the end of the second day’s play in Pune, Morkel said, “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. If we put our hand up, we haven’t been able to do that. There are world class players in our batting line up. I know that individually, they’ve got their processes and they know how to go about those things.”

“Hopefully, we can iron those mistakes out because it’s costing us at the moment. But I’m pretty sure there’s enough experience, enough knowledge amongst them to rectify that. 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 again shared.

Morkel, however, remains positive despite Team India having their backs to the wall as well.

“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. Let’s be honest, it’s going to be a tough task. But what an opportunity for somebody to really inspire and put in a fighting and a top performance — that’s the way I see it. When conditions are tricky and tough you’ll see real people stand up and fight and if we show that fight and somebody gets the momentum going in these conditions, you never know,” he concluded.