The rise of Ashwin-Jadeja as a hunting pair has been the ladder for India’s Test success

Colombo: During the first Test in Galle, an eye-catching statistic from the 2016-‘17 home season came up on the television screens.

• R Ashwin + Ravindra Jadeja – 153 wickets at 24.14 with 11 five-wicket hauls and four ten-wicket hauls between them.
• Others – 87 wickets at 35.08 with just one five-wicket haul.  

India’s rise to the No 1 Test ranking has coincided with the home season sure, but it is also a fact that Virat Kohli and Co have beaten different teams on varied surfaces. New Zealand and Bangladesh might have been easy meat, but all pitches against England were tough. And Australia were the best opposition that India faced throughout that season – they made for an engrossing contest.

Within the boundaries of these pointed observations, there also lies the simple fact that the rise of Ashwin and Jadeja as a hunting pair has been the ladder for India’s ascendancy. Give them a pitch with simple turn and bounce, some variations, and they will make the batsmen dance to their tunes, whether with the old ball or new.

In a way, the aforementioned statistic already reflects on the current Test series against Sri Lanka. In these first two Tests, Ashwin-Jadeja have picked up 24 out of 36 wickets on offer with the pacers – Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Hardik Pandya – accounting for the remaining 12 wickets in four innings. Herein, the second Test is but a microcosm of how this Ashwin-Jadeja pairing works together.

Spin Twins

This SSC wicket wasn’t your regular turner. First of all, it nearly deceived the Indian team, for until they arrived for the toss, the Indian skipper was under the impression that this was going to be a grassy wicket. The strength of this side is such that, in the present moment, all its bases are covered quite nicely, hence there was nothing to be worried about. Virat Kohli came, won the toss, promptly decided to bat, and despite a couple hiccups, India sleep-walked to 622/9d. From then on, the match was set for the “spin twins” to do their magic.

Again, talking about this SSC pitch, it changed colour (figuratively) over the course of this match’s four days. On the first two days, it was a batting beauty, but then as per Lankan players’ predictions, it started to take quick turn. This is where Ashwin came into the picture.

There is a notion that Ashwin needs turning tracks to do his bidding. It is part myth, part assumption that other spinners do not need turning tracks. After all, isn’t the job of a spinner to tweak the ball off the wicket? It is unlike in the case of pace bowlers, whose movement of the ball is dependent more on its condition itself as well as how the atmospheric conditions are, and not solely on the pitch. Moving on though, what most students of the game fail to take into consideration that finger-spinners – like Ashwin – do need purchase off the wicket, and yes, this aspect cannot be denied.

The underlying word herein is purchase, and not turn, mind you. For Ashwin, it comes in different forms. A hint of spin, a little bit of bounce and even the new ball, are all factors that he uses to bring out variations. It is seen in the manner how Kohli hands over the new ball repeatedly to Ashwin, not only in this series but in the home season as well.

While the pitch was still exhibiting quick turn on Day two and three, Ashwin was able to get enough out of it to trouble the Lankan batsmen, thus picking his 26th five-wicket haul in Test cricket. Later that day, Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis denied the same bowlers for two sessions. The difference was not in Indian bowling per say, rather it was in how Lanka carried out their plans. Simply put, they had lost their nerve in the first innings, particularly after Ashwin used the new ball to reduce them to 50/2 at stumps on Day two.

In the second innings though, Karunaratne and Mendis deployed the sweep to great effect, something that even the Indian players applauded and Kohli highlighted in his post-match conference. Additionally, the dry nature of this SSC pitch made sure that it had lost all juice by day three and four, thus making it easier for the batsmen to counter the slow turn on offer.

“The older ball was soft and all balls were turning, so it was very difficult to get edges and create chances,” explained Kohli, a thought echoed by Ashwin earlier in the game as well. This factor, single-handedly, brought Jadeja into play in the second innings.

To counter their constant sweeping, Ashwin utilised his variations in pace and loop to get under their bats in hope of inducing top edges. Jadeja doesn’t have these many variations, apart from the natural one that holds its line. Instead, with the older ball turning away from the right-hander, Jadeja came into play more often against the Lankan lower-middle order on Day four.

Here, compare Jadeja’s pitch-map against right and left-handed batsmen. Against Karunaratne in particular, since he batted for nearly 400 minutes, Jadeja pulled his length back just enough to reel in more bounce because the angle of turn wasn’t troubling the left-handed opener. Karunaratne’s dismissal – off a ball that bounced sharply and lobbed off his glove to slip – is testament to this. Against the right-handers, like Mendis and Angelo Mathews, he could bowl a tad fuller, bringing the close-in fielders into play.

You want to ask then, which spinner is more valuable to Kohli, and unsurprisingly, you will struggle to find the answer. As seen from evidence of this second Test, and a long home season prior, different variables allow Kohli to make use of his two different spinners and counter various situations.

With the playing XI balanced thanks to the presence of Hardik Pandya, it makes for good reasoning that the Indian skipper will have two brilliant spinners at his disposal when the overseas cycle begins again in 2018.