The under-appreciated aspect to India’s rise to No.1: their stinging new tail

Mitchell Santner’s delivery went straight with the arm and brushed Ravichandran Ashwin’s pad before his bat could meet the ball. With the ball headed for the stumps, Ashwin was adjudged leg-before-wicket and asked to head for the pavilion. It was India’s sixth wicket to fall with only 106 on the board in the second innings.

India led by 218, but with only four more wickets in the bank, the Kolkata Test was set for a summersault. But unlike the Indian teams of the past, who could have caved in, this side still had Wriddhiman Saha, Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar to bat.

Mohammed Shami was India’s No. 11 against New Zealand in the second Test. He was also India’s only batsman, who cannot be relied upon for his batting. Saha is one of Bengal’s most prolific current batsmen. Jadeja has a couple of triple centuries in first class cricket. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has a first-class century and wants to be an all-rounder, at No. 10, one realises that India suddenly bats deep, very deep.

A worthy replacement for Mahi

Saha walked in to replace Ashwin. The slow left-armer, Santner, welcomed him with another delivery that straightened. Maybe a batsman of lesser pedigree would have missed it and put India in a further state of bother, but Saha did not succumb. The slip, forward short-leg and wicket-keeper chirped away. New Zealand were in the midst of a strong comeback. But the Indian wicketkeeper batsman remained unperturbed.

The more settled Saha grew, the lighter on his foot he became. To negate the spin, he put the sweep to regular and effective use. And when he swept Santner to bring up his fifty, captain Virat Kohli led the applause from an appreciative dressing room. Saha may not be as destructive as MS Dhoni, but if he can maintain his consistency, he could be a thorn the opponents may want to avoid.

It was Saha’s second half-century of the game. Both of them had come in pressure situations, and had played a part in India handing the Kiwis a second defeat in as many games.

More importantly, the knock reminded every team playing a Test against Kohli’s men that there is a new problem in town. The bowlers may get past the Kohlis, the Vijays and the Rahanes. They may even believe the packing off of these big boys has earned them the right to a breather. But that is when the new problem knocks on their door.

“Saha is doing very well this year. Hope he can continue. A wicketkeeper coming good is an added bonus,” Kohli had remarked post the game.

If a trend is to be observed over the last couple of months, India’s lower-order could be among the most formidable in Test cricket at present.

Outscoring the top-order

For years, India had one of the strongest top-order in the world. Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman were a nightmare to bowl to. Later, MS Dhoni joined the gang to complete the intimidation. But those who followed them could hardly be relied on to bat for your life. The current Indian lower-order, though, is different. It is un-Indian. It is more Australian, like the one that helped the men from Down Under rule Test cricket for over a decade from the later nineties onward.

Saha anchored both the innings in Kolkata when the team sailed through troubled waters. Ravindra Jadeja’s counter-attacking knocks put India on course for a victory in Kanpur. And it was Ashwin’s crafty batting that pulled the team out of the hole they were set to fall into on multiple occasions on their recent tour of West Indies.

Ashwin was fourth, while Saha was fifth on the run charts of the Indian batsmen in the West Indies. They had bettered the returns of top-order batsmen Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and Rohit Sharma. They had conveyed to the opponents that dismantling India’s lower-order will be as, if not sometimes more, difficult than making inroads in the top-oder.

With India 4/236, the first Test against the West Indies had not begun in the one-sided manner many had expected it to. But that is when India’s premier off-spinner, Ashwin, walked in, promoted to number six.

On the 11th ball that he faced, he did not move his feet much, body remained stiff, but he cover-drove Carlos Brathwaite’s medium pace for a boundary by hitting through the line. The shot was Laxman-like. The shot also promised that the decision to promote Ashwin had been spot on. That it was a decision, which would allow Kohli to play five bowlers, a combination the aggressive captain prefers. It was also a decision, if successful, which could change the dynamics of India’s Test batting.

A hallmark of the best teams

Ashwin used his wrists generously and scored a century. India posted 566 and came out as comfortable winners. The success of the decision to push Ashwin up the order was sealed when the man from Chennai stepped out to Roston Chase in the third Test and lofted him for a six over mid-on. The shot took Ashwin to his second century of the series.

It was a knock Ashwin had played after walking in with India at 4/87. It was the kind of fightback that ensured India would take a 2-0 lead in the series. It was the kind of innings that promised India a new probable candidate for the number-six slot. More crucially, Ashwin had now found support in Saha. The Bengal wicketkeeper had used his nimble footwork to help himself to a ton as well. India’s batting dynamics had changed. And it was a change they have carried forward against the visiting Kiwis.

It is also a change they will hope that they can build on as the lengthy home season heats up. For, every successful team boasts of a solid lower-order. Adam Gilchrist’s blazing batting at number seven followed by stoic knocks from the likes of Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie helped Australia reign supreme in Test cricket for a long time. It was a long tail, and one that would wag. Similarly, one of the strongest South African Test sides had the likes of Mark Boucher, Lance Klusener and Shaun Pollock forming their lower-order.

Owing to the recent success in Tests, much of which is because of the fight offered by the batsmen in the bottom half of the line up, India regained the No. 1 rank. And if this trend is here to stay, India’s triumphs overseas could soon become a regular affair. Like has been the case with the great teams of the last couple of decades.