You cannot judge a teams performance on day one. There is plenty of cricket still left in this match. Day one India has already lost 4 wickets and after these two, who are on the pitch, not much batting is left. Ravichandran Ashwin can still bat and I am expecting them to score more than 350 runs. Day two would be interesting as Shreyash Iyer is on 75 run and can easily reach 100.
I am surprised about one aspect. It was supposed to be a pitch that is supportive to the spinners. But all the 4 wickets which fell on the first day went to the pace bowlers. Kyle Jamieson picked up three (which is not surprising, since I have always considered him to be the best bowler in NZ), and Tim Southee picked up the sole remaining wicket. The spinners (Ajaz Patel, William Somerville and part-timer Rachin Ravindra) conceded a total of 166 runs and yet went wicketless. Did they erred by dropping Neil Wagner? Also I thought that Mitchell Santner would have been a better option instead of Somerville. I think that in this pitch Mitchell Santner would surely have been better. I am kind of surprised to see that all of the wickets went to the fast bowlers but judging by the skill of New Zealand spin bowlers I think it's quite understandable. As spin has never been the main strength of the New Zealand bowling lineup. But I also think that if Mitchell Santner was in the team maybe he could have one or two wickets in the day.
Talking about the day, Iyer has been really fascinating today, he has played a few bad shots here and there but was lucky enough to get away with them, apart from that he has been in excellent touch, but unfortunately he will still have to sit out of the next match when Kohli steps in unless the team is planning to send Shubham Gill out, This is something I really hate about the Indian team, you can score a 300 and will still be dropped from the team because there is a senior player who has scored good runs in the past. I still feel bad for Karun Nair every day, just a couple of bad matches and boom he was nowhere in the team. On the other Hand, Shubhman Gill hasn't played any extraordinary innings so far and still has sort of a fixed spot in playing XI.