Ashwin-Jadeja combination overshadows England's spinners

Despite a strong start and Jos Buttler-Jake Ball’s stroke-filled display towards the end, the Indian team restricted the visitors to an exact score of 400. While the total is not intimidating, the English bowlers can afford to challenge the much-vaunted Indian line-up, and perhaps, ask some questions on the third day.

The most striking feature of the first innings was that all ten wickets fell to spinners, with Ravichandran Ashwin picking up his seventh five-wicket haul in 2016, and the 23rd overall, drawing him at par with Kapil Dev’s career tally of fifers. This was also the first instance since 1972 that the England team had lost all their ten wickets to spinners. BS Bedi and BS Chandrasekhar were the ones who did damage then.

Indian stumper Parthiv Patel, who made a sensational comeback after eight years into the Test team, heaped praise on the Indian spinners and their modus operandi, claiming that the hosts’ spin is far greater than the one representing the English team on the current tour.

The tourists, vary of Indian pitches, added Adil Rashid and Gareth Batty to their ranks, with Moeen Ali reprising the role of the third spinner. Rashid has picked up 18 wickets with his leg-spin, and Ali eight, but the two just haven’t been able to create the kind of impact made by the Ashwin-Jadeja combination.

Patel, speaking at the end of the day’s play, spoke about why the Indian spinners have trumped their English counterparts.

More than the surface, the quality of bowlers is far better. Our bowlers have more revolutions on the ball than their spinners. And we vary our place very well. We deceived a lot of players in the air, instead of just getting help from the pitch.

“We have traditional bowlers who can vary pace brilliantly, and that’s what Ashwin, Jaddu and even Jayant have been doing. We’ve kept them quiet. On a red-soil wicket, it’s very difficult to contain the scoring rate. We did that yesterday in the second session and that’s the reason we got wickets in the third”.

Ravichandran Ashwin, the man of the hour, conceded why he felt special taking wickets on this pitch, and how he outdid England’s premier batsman, Joe Root.

“I had to bowl the right pace and length. On this pitch, you need to get the speed right or else the ball skids and comes onto the bat. (On the carrom ball) I thought it was an important time to use it. It is not a bad time to unleash it because of the upcoming home Test. It depends on a few things: One is batsman specific, but more than that, it is how the batsman is going about his business. This is one of the pitches where the ball can go to the slip.

(On Root’s dismissal) I have been watching a lot of videos of his batting. He has been driving and push-driving: he was very good in Mohali and Rajkot, but those are different wickets and here you can nick to the slips. It was a good spell after lunch: I had to tell Kohli not to move because he was looking for the single to be stopped. It is a very deceptive wicket. It is pretty hard, and it is difficult to stick to one length”.

Former England all-rounder Ian Botham has urged the English spinners to bring more creativity and variarion in their craft, slamming them for allowing the Indians to play them off the foot. Speaking to Sky Sports Cricket, Botham said that “you have got to get the players coming to the ball more, that's how they got their wicket”. The wicket he was referring to was KL Rahul’s dismissal against Adil Rashid, one of the English spinners who has impressed the most.

Botham feels that although the Indians haven’t been as troubled by the English spinners, Rashid can turn on the heat and ask the batsmen some questions. “It's not all doom and gloom but I think England will be disappointed they didn't get their paces right.”

"India see Rashid as a threat - that's why they have tried to knock him out of the attack - so I would persist with him in the morning," he added.It is to be seen whether the tourists are able to claw themselves out the web created by Ashwin and Jadeja, or the duo, along with the newcomer Jayant Yadav, continue to strangle the batsmen with their loop and guile in the third innings of this match, and the Chennai Test that follows.

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