Well past noon and under a scorching sun on Wednesday, India’s off-spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Jayant Yadav ‘operated’ in tandem at a practise pitch, close to the edge of the square, but the shade of the surface had a striking similarity to the centre pitch on which the fourth Test match will be played from Thursday. Both tossed and flighted the ball, obtained appreciable bounce and turn and wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel went through the motions of collecting the ball at chest height towards his left after the ball had spun a long way.
The duo and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja would perhaps expect the same to happen at some stage of the tussle between the two teams that will resume after an eight-day break. India outplayed England at Mohali winning the third Test in four days to take a 2-0 lead. India’s spinners — Ashwin, Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra — have accounted for 103 wickets of the 164 wickets in ten Tests this year and they have arrived at this venue with their tails up.
The Wankhede Stadium is a favourite hunting ground for Ashwin, India’s leading spinner for a little over five years. He’s taken 28 wickets at 27.28 in three Tests here on a pitch with a heavy content of red soil that encourages lift and turn; the only jarring note in the impressive returns is his second-rate showing against Alastair Cook’s England here four years ago when England off-spinner Graeme Swann and left-arm spinner Monty Panesar carried out a coup de grace taking 19 wickets and sounded the alarm bells for the Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Indian team that demanded tailor-made rank turners from the authorities.
It was the clever and crafty Swann who had began to disturb the equanimity of the Indian batsmen with a five-wicket haul in the first innings of the Motera Test four years ago. Although he reasoned that a particular ball would have landed on a pebble and turned rapidly to bowl Virat Kohli lock, stock and barrel, Swann, who had come into the series with a big reputation, played his part and with Panesar joining forces in Mumbai, England dominated the rest of the series to provide an upset result.
England doesn’t boast of a Swann or Panesar in its ranks now and would reply upon the guile of off-spinner Moeen Ali and leg-spinner Adil Rashid to deliver the goods, but Ashwin — who would have been chagrined with a below par effort four years ago would be keen to make amends. Ashwin and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha together have taken 40 wickets at the Wankhede; this time the seasoned off-break bowler will have Jadeja, who can turn out to be deadly on a rough surface.
Mental note
After the Indian team left for the hotel located on the Marine Drive, the England team arrived and very soon the spinners, Ali, Rashid, Liam Dawson and even Joe Root got into action. And, indeed, Cook may have quickly made a mental note of the degree of bounce the match-pitch would afford. Spinners have taken more wickets than the seamers at this venue and there is sense of inevitability about the spinners playing their part in the fourth Test.
England has not been beaten hollow after a crashing defeat against Bangladesh at Mirpur, but clearly its inexperienced batsmen have not been able to find an answer to Ashwin, Yadav and Jadeja.
Coach Trevor Bayliss has been quoted as saying that England’s intensity which was seen at Rajkot and for a few sessions at Visakhapatnam, declined at Mohali and he may urge the England batsmen to be selectively aggressive and he himself may play a more proactive role and take the burden of Cook from the strategy standpoint.
Former England captain, Michael Atherton, feels that Cook’s future as captain may hinge on the outcome of the remaining Tests here and at Chennai. Cook will open the innings with South African-born Keaton Jennings who became eligible to play for England fulfilling a four-year permanent residency rule. He has replaced the injured Haseeb Hameed.
There is a bright chance that K.L. Rahul would return to open the innings with Murali Vijay. Skipper Kohli dropped sufficient hints on this aspect. The Indian batting group had a good hit.
Rahane ruled out
Karnataka batsman Manish Pandey has replaced vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane who has been ruled of the fourth and fifth Tests. The BCCI’s medical team has confirmed that Rahane sustained a fracture on his right index finger while batting and he has been ruled out for the remaining two Tests.
The BCCI has also called up Shardul Thakur as a cover for Mohammed Shami who is down with a sore knee.
The teams: India (from): Virat Kohli (captain), Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Parthiv Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Bhuvneswar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami, Amit Mishra and Karun Nair.
England (from): Alastair Cook (captain), Keaton Jennings, Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Jonathan Bairstow, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Steve Finn, Gary Balance, Liam Dawson, Jake Ball, Gareth Batty and Ben Duckett.
