If Jadeja won’t get you, Ashwin will

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  • Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin in Indian conditions are a sight to behold for everyone apart from the opposition's batsmen

    PILING ON THE PRESSURE

    New Zealand put up a brave stand in their first innings in Kanpur. Tom Latham and Kane Williamson defied the Indian spinners on a rain-curtailed day two, but the next morning was different.

    The bowlers were back with a plan, and they didn’t allow easy runs to the overnight duo. Right before Ashwin trapped Latham LBW with a sharp drifter, they bowled 18 dot deliveries in tandem.

    Ashwin later had Mitchell Santner caught at first slip, a similar delivery drifting away, a classic left-hander’s dismissal. It opened the floodgates as Jadeja ran through the tail on a deteriorating pitch.

    WORKING IN TANDEM

    On day five, New Zealand faced an uphill battle to save the match. Santner and Luke Ronchi battled through for more than an hour. The duo looked to take their chances, and the Indian spinners responded in a different way.

    Comfortable in the knowledge that surviving a whole day was near impossible, they tempted the batsmen to go for their shots. Even then, the basic plan was to control scoring from one end.

    Jadeja bowled nine maiden overs on the trot, and finally broke through with Ronchi’s wicket. Ashwin cleaned up the rest, having already picked up his 200th Test wicket on the previous day.


    The difference between the two bowlers, beyond the obvious, is not in the angles from which they bowl. It lies in their very mannerisms, starting from the way they hold shape of the ball, to their delivery strides.

    If Ashwin brings guile to the table, Jadeja is more direct with his darts. If the batsmen try to read the off-spinner from his hand, they await the left-arm spinner at their crease, waiting to see if the ball comes straight on or turns away quickly.

    “I don’t know how I do it,” said Jadeja, when asked about his natural variation. “I have played on unprepared wickets since childhood. Maybe that has taught me where to pitch the ball. I just try to do it as consistently as possible.”

    Ashwin, Jadeja combined record when they play together in Tests

    • Matches: 12
    • Wickets: 136
    • Average: 17.84

    In terms of spin trickery, Jadeja doesn’t have much to show. He is flatter through the air, relying on the surface to impart some assistance to the ball. Change of pace is his one great asset, and at times, it is negated.

    Take the Kanpur wicket for instance; all through the Test, in the morning sessions from days one to five, the pitch was a sedate friend to the batsmen.

    Jadeja countered it through maintaining a consistent line and length, putting pressure on the batsmen by bowling maiden overs. It is his other great strength – he is a miserly bowler.

    By his own admission, the initial plan was to string together maiden overs. And once they were able to achieve that sustained pressure from both ends, the two spinners looked for purchase off the surface. ‘Turning the ball into/towards the stumps’ was key.

    Herein, two pointers play up.

    One, that Ashwin has a corn on the middle finger of his right hand (the bowling hand, and it is now troubling him in Kolkata as well), and he needed assistance from the pitch to get the ball to turn in sharply. Kane Williamson’s dismissal is a case in point.

    The second pointer is an offshoot, thus. It is regarding the dismissal of Latham, wherein Ashwin overcame his minor handicap (unable to grip the ball to his satisfaction) and yet set up the batsman relying both on his ability and the pitch.

    “The way the New Zealand left-hand batsmen play is very different to the other left-handers,” he said, explaining the dismissal. “They don’t plonk their foot across, they plonk it right down the wicket, try to play inside out a lot, just tried to change a bit of angles.”

    It cannot be denied that New Zealand batsmen have shown resolve to play spin in their main partnerships. Latham-Williamson and Santner-Ronchi used their feet well as well as the depth of the crease.

    That Ashwin managed to take 10-wicket haul in this first Test showcases his thinking prowess – use of flight and variation of pace to beat the batsmen. His spell on day two, just before rain came, was his best through the match, even if he didn’t get any reward in that session.

    THE ANIL KUMBLE INFLUENCE 

    In both their methods though, there is a strong reflection of Anil Kumble. Stringing maidens together is an obvious ploy from his golden era, when John Wright first introduced this mantra to Indian bowling.

    Over practice sessions, the two spinners have been seen bowling to a particularly marked patch on the pitch, with Kumble studying their accuracy.

    It was also a throwback to the West Indies tour, when the coach was using the same practice with Amit Mishra. Together, he is shaping a spin troika that could once again resurrect the ‘final frontier’, as touring India once was. Already, there are statistics enough to support it, and Jadeja seems to play a vital part herein.

    The Saurashtra all-rounder made his debut in the Nagpur Test against England (2012), where MS Dhoni deployed a five-bowler attack in a must-win match. Four of them – Jadeja, Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha and Piyush Chawla – were spinners.

    They couldn’t rescue the series for India, but since then, began an undefeated run at home. Since then, India haven’t been beaten in 12 Tests at home. Jadeja and Ashwin have partnered each other in 10 of those.

    “At times when they feel like we are trying too much as a team, both of them can come back to you and say that ‘I am trying to bowl to this one plan and let’s see how that goes’. As a captain it always gives you more assurance that both these guys obviously know what they are doing,” said Kohli, appreciating his spin arsenal.

    As such, the Kiwis lost 16 wickets to spinners in that Kanpur Test. It almost became fashionable for the 20,000-strong crowd on day five to support every appeal vociferously, no matter who the bowler was.

    If Jadeja won’t get you, Ashwin will, and so it went, painting a perfect template for the remainder of this long home season.

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