Former New Zealand pacer, Shane Bond reckons that the conservative approach of the Kiwis against Jasprit Bumrah could become a template for other teams as they look to tackle the premier Indian pacer, who went wicketless in the ODI series. The premier bowler garnered a lot of criticism for his lean run during the three ODIs against New Zealand and Bond put that down to expectations.

During a recent interview with PTI, Bond said, “That’s the nature of expectations when you got a bowler of Jasprit’s quality. I thought New Zealand played him well and identified him as a risk. They have played him conservatively and obviously there was some inexperience around (Navdeep Saini and Shardul Thakur).”

He further added, “It is not an easy place to bowl as wickets are flat. At the end of the day, all you can do is try and bowl well. He bowled reasonably well but sometimes you don’t get wickets.”

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Bond, who has spent a considerable amount of time with Bumrah as the Mumbai Indians bowling coach in the IPL, nonetheless expects India’s premier strike bowler to have a “massive impact” on the two-match Test series starting Friday.

The veteran pacer said, “Just that he hadn’t had a lot of game before the series and conditions are a bit foreign. Although New Zealand played him well in limited-overs, Jasprit will have a massive impact on the Test series. I have no doubt about that. It always takes time to get back to top form because there is no substitute of game time. So it’s good for Jasprit that he is leading into Test matches with some short-form cricket.”

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Like the Indians, even Bond believes that Neil Wagner can create problems for the visitors with his persistent short bowling. He also feels that Basin Reserve in Wellington and the Hagley Oval in Christchurch are different grounds, with bigger dimensions that will help Wagner to be even more effective.