Pass the cold flannel, won’t you, and switch on the ceiling fan. I’ve had that old dream, one I thought I’d almost banished, about subcontinental pitches and rampaging Indian spinners. Actually, forget that, you’d better hand the flannel to Ben Stokes.
At Ranchi, for the first time in the series, India’s spinners hit full pillage mode, snatching every wicket to fall in England’s brief second innings, swirling an air of inevitability over proceedings like a smothering cape. England’s innings had started with the ballast of a 46-run lead, which, although smaller than Stokes would have liked, felt more than handy. But it ended with England’s trousers round their ankles, India having snipped their braces from behind: all out for 145, with the last seven wickets slipping away for 35 runs. Even during the second-innings 122 at Rajkot, there was time for Zak Crawley to be lbw to Jasprit Bumrah and Ben Duckett to be hopelessly run out.
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But on Sunday, with Bumrah watching, rested on the sidelines, Mohammed Siraj ran in for just three overs. Rohit Sharma opened with spinners at both ends and finished with spinners at both ends, the majestic Ravichandran Ashwin taking the 35th Test five-fer of his career, with four for the bouncy Kuldeep Yadav and the vital wicket of the well-set Jonny Bairstow a reward for Ravindra Jadeja, with the first ball after tea.
Ashwin loves the new ball, its bewitching shine and heady bounce. And when Sharma asked who wanted to bowl first, up went his hand. “I wanted that first over,” he said after play. “I seem to have a bit of attachment to the new ball, it allows you to bowl a little quicker, and I enjoyed that.
“I had to change how I was thinking about the game because there wasn’t much turn. I am someone who likes the ball to drop on to the pitch and get bite out of the surface but it wasn’t like that here. Sometimes when I come to the eastern part of the country, I have to use side spin, hammer it into the pitch, and it was quite a mental switch that I had to make.”
It was all too much of a conundrum for England’s top order, where Ashwin did the early damage, taking two in two balls and reducing England to 19 for two, Duckett poached at short leg after he prodded defensively, and Ollie Pope gone for a pair, stepping back to one that didn’t turn. And then, after 12 overs of careful craft from an attractively aggressive Crawley and nearly nurdling Joe Root had taken the lead to more than a hundred, Ashwin gathered his third. Root was the victim, lbw after a terrifically grumpy exchange between Ashwin and Sharma – whose DRS decisions are worth a television series of their own – over whether to review or not. They did, and Root was sent on his way by technology.
It was the breakthrough India needed, and once Crawley followed after another charming half-century, victim to the instantly dangerous Kuldeep, all bets were off. Kuldeep was too good for Stokes, for Tom Hartley, for Ollie Robinson, too. In Ashwin’s words: “Kuldeep was brilliant today, changing the momentum, changing the pace, changing the trajectory. He can put a lot of revs on the ball and he’s got a lot of skill but he changed his paces really nicely. He is very difficult to play when he does that and I just stole a five-fer away from him but that’s the way the game goes.”
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It was James Anderson who completed Ashwin’s five-fer, gleamingly gathered by Dhruv Jurel, who had earlier changed the momentum of the day with his careful 90 batting with the tail. Meanwhile the pitch, despite its jigsaw effect, held far fewer demons that those peering at it in their warm-up shirts and commentary suits had promised. But what the cracks did offer India’s attack was the possibility of trouble, a mind-trick almost as powerful as the demons themselves.
If the eight overs of India’s chase were a learning curve for England’s spinners, given the new ball while Anderson kicked his heels in the outfield, it wasn’t a surprise. Hartley and Shoaib Bashir are striplings, learning the trade on the toughest of tours, Root a part-timer, and all of them faced with Rohit Sharma, who eats spinners on toast, and Yashasvi Jaiswal, recently anointed by the cricketing gods. Sharma watched a couple of half-volleys drift down from Hartley and merrily tucked in. Eight overs duly negotiated, he and Jaiswal strode off, bats resting on their shoulders, mere dinner jackets to be swung away now the main business of the match was done.
As in the third Test, India started the third day behind but finished it with a roar. Spin has got them within touching distance of the series win.
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