In what seemed a puzzling move, Rohit opted to bat, picking three spinners and just two fast bowlers despite the first day being washed out by rain and the pitch being under cover for most of the two days.

“So, what if we put a little bit of pressure on ourselves? We want to play well. We want to challenge ourselves. This time it didn’t work out, the challenges that came our way. We didn’t respond. Well, and we found ourselves in a situation where we were bowled out for 46 runs. As a captain it certainly hurts to see that number, but in 365 days you will make two or three bad decisions.

India named three spinners in their XI – R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav – and left out fast bowler Akash Deep, who played the two Tests against Bangladesh last month. As it turned out, there was plenty of help on the field for the fast bowlers, and India were reduced to 36 for 6 by lunch.

Rohit said the reason for choosing three spinners was the bare appearance of the pitch, and the fact that Kuldeep has had success on flat surfaces.

“Look, we felt like there wasn’t much grass on the field. We thought it would do what it was supposed to do for the first few sessions, and then it would take turns as the match went on,” he said . “That’s how (it is) when we played in India, the first session is always crucial and then the wicket tends to settle down and then the spinners come into play.

“As I said, there wasn’t much grass, so we thought the reason for adding Kuldeep was because he bowled on flat pitches and took wickets, so we expected the pitch to be a little flatter than it turned out to be. So we expected the field to be a little flatter than it turned out to be.” clearly a misjudgment of the field.”

Another talking point was that Virat Kohli batted at number 3 for the first time since 2016 as Shubman Gill was not fit to play. In six previous innings at number 3, Kohli had scored just 97 runs at an average of 19.40. Those numbers took another hit when he fell for a 12-ball duck, taking a rising delivery from William O’Rourke to the leg gutter. Rohit said Kohli had moved forward so as not to disturb players below him.

“The experienced players are the ones who have to take that extra responsibility and this time it was Virat. He was the one who was ready for that (at number 3),” Rohit said. “We asked him if he can manage number 3 because Sarfaraz (Khan)…we also wanted to give Sarfaraz the position where he usually bats four and five, six maybe.

“But we didn’t want to change Rishabh and KL (Rahul) and that’s why Sarfaraz went on four and Virat on three. It’s actually a good sign, players coming up and taking that responsibility and taking up the challenge is a good sign. After a long time, KL is at No. 6, so we want him to bat there.”

Despite India’s tough day, Rohit was in good spirits and started the press conference by joking: “Chalao talwaar” (draw your swords). It was also unusual for an Indian captain to face the press at the end of such a day in a Test, and Rohit admitted they had to dig deep to bounce back after New Zealand were at 134 ended with seven wickets in hand.

“I think if we want to stay in the game, we don’t want to let them get away,” he said. “(They’ve) scored way too many runs, obviously it’s 180 runs, so that’s about 140 runs (134), so (keep them) as few as possible. The wicket seems to be settling down a bit, so we’re expecting that the field will play like this. We have to hit really big in the second and see if we can make a game of it.”