India vs England 3rd Test Update News
R Ashwin, Jayant Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja on double duty;
India's slow bowlers extend lead, take early wickets. For 139 balls, Jayant
Yadav afforded England bowlers or fielders not even the remotest semblance of
hope that they could dislodge him. He had an answer to anything that the
England bowlers hurled at him. They changed ploys, lines, lengths and fields,
but Yadav stood his ground, unflustered. He was making the best use of an
unprecedented induction in international cricket, and he knew his utility with
bat will count as much as the efficacy with the ball.
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| India vs England 3rd Test Update News |
When Ravichandran Ashwin’s edge was finally procured, with
India just 18 runs ahead, England would have sensed to wrap the India’s
innings, the farthest by lunch. Sure, they had a hang of Yadav’s batting
prowess, he had calmly defied them in Visakhapatnam, but they didn’t have a
measure of it. First, they tried all those tricks the bowlers normally attempt
against lower-order batsmen – the yorker, slower balls and the bouncers. Then
they began treating him like a proper top-order batsman, setting in-out fields,
adopting defensive lengths or tempting him with wide balls outside the
off-stump.
India vs England 3rd Test Update News
India vs England 3rd Test Update News
But Yadav didn’t succumb to either as he swelled his
reputation as a handy batsman with a trenchant 55, another vital chapter in
India’s comeback script. To call him a lower-order would be ridiculing his
batsmanship, for in his three international knocks thus far, he has the
adequate requisites to blossom into a trusted batsman down the order. It’s just
that he comes at No 9, not that he bats like one.
Agreed the strip must have been slumbering on an over-dose
of tranquillisers, and he should replicate his efforts in tougher climes before
any conclusive judgements could be passed on his batting, but he nonetheless
showed one particularly endearing quality of a top-order batsman – temperament.
Ashwin’s twin
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A temperament eerily reminiscent of Ashwin. Now the Ashwin
comparison seems irrepressible. He may not be as graceful or effortless as the
fellow offie, but like him has the range of strokes, and even perhaps a better
technique on the off-side. While Ashwin has a tendency to drive loosely outside
the off-stump, his feet static on the ground, Yadav meets the ball right where
it’s landing, with negligible gap between his bat and body. The “gate” is
nonexistent. But like Ashwin, he is a crunchy driver of the ball, and is
ruthless to anything straying on to the leg-side or over-pitched.
He, in a sense, is an Ashwin without frills and wrists.
India vs England 3rd Test Update News
Anderson would vouch for it. The very first ball he bowled
to Yadav, he hit him down the ground, nothing more than a checked push. In the
same over, Anderson slanted marginally away from the stumps. Yadav just
switched to his back-foot and coaxed it through covers. Thus he suddenly
overturned the impetus that was sightly on England’s side, soon after Ashwin’s
exit. It was still a tricky period for India, with the balance of the match
swinging like a pendulum, but Jadeja and Yadav not only weathered the storm but
also catapulted India to an indomitable position in the match.
There was an interesting stat that illuminated the
burgeoning reputation of India’s lower order batsman – that it was the first
time ever their No 7, 8, 9 scored half-centuries in the same Test. It was not a
stray occurrence either. Earlier this year, in West Indies, Ashwin had
orchestrated a wonderful rearguard on a spicy pitch in St Lucia. On the land
mines against South Africa, they had shown a similar doggedness. Even in tours
of Australia and England, they had demonstrated their aptitude on several
occasions. But what makes this a curious happenstance is that all three were
batsmen involved were too.India vs England 3rd Test Update News
Hunting in pairs
There worthiness couldn’t be ascertained more, as between
them they accounted for more than half of India’s first-innings total – they
contributed 217 off the 417 runs they ended up with. On the weight of their
runs, India gathered an authoritative lead of 134 runs. For India had yet to
dig deep, when Kohli departed with the contest evenly-locked at 204/6. But first
the dervish bowling pair of Ashwin and Jadeja replicated their chemistry when
bowling with a resuscitating alliance of 97 runs, before Jadeja and Yadav
chalked out 80 on their own.
The feature of both the alliances that batted like they were
specialists batsmen, immune to any negative baggages of lower-order batsmen. If
Ashwin was in regal touch, Anderson will again attest to that, Jadeja was
defiant, curbing his own instincts and Yadav assured, putting not a foot wrong
until the 139th ball, which he edged to Jonny Bairstow, but was spilled. Two
balls later, Bairstow clung on to another edge. But it hardly altered the
complexion of the game.
Later on their merit of their bowling, India find themselves
favourites to wrap up the match, before the shadows begin to lengthen in Mohali
on Tuesday. Together, they justified the cricketing altruism that the deeds
with bat could reflect on their feats with the ball.
Suddenly, when Jadeja and Ashwin began to bowl in tandem,
the snoozing pitch woke up. Jadeja was getting the ball to skid through,
obviously his briskness outdoing the slowness of the strip. Ashwin and Yadav
began purchasing sufficient turn to puzzle the English batsman. Their height meant
they haggled more bounced too off the surface.
Ashwin sow the seeds of doubts in Cook’s mind with a ball
that turned sharply away, before breaching through his defence with one than
minutely turned. He then fooled Moeen Ali in flight.
The Jayant Yadav’s ball hissed off a crack to kiss Jonny
Bairstow’s under edge. Ashwin’s ripping off-breaks were back in vogue as he
squared Stokes up with one, before it was reviewed and judged adjacent.
Jadeja unlucky
Meanwhile, Jadeja was grossly unfortunate to have returned
with a wicket or two, but he, his pace and accuracy, could be the most potent
proposition for the English batsmen on the fourth day.
At the end of the day, with England still 57 runs behind and
four wickets down, they’d be left wondering how the Indian spinners had
contrived to make the strip look so scary, or unshackle it from the slumber.
Bairstow reckoned it was supreme craft. Jadeja credited it to the runs in their
kitty. “If your team has the upper hand or if you are in a good situation, obviously
the opposing team will struggle. Like when we went to England, their spinners
also looked like it was Muralitharan bowling. I will say that it all depends on
the situation. Whichever team has the upper hand, their bowlers look
threatening, their batsmen look very good.”
Partly, England too should shoulder the blame. They were
short of ideas, inspiration, imagination and belief, an antithesis to the heart
and vigour they had shown on Sunday. The point can’t be better illustrated by
the fact that they began the day with Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes. Practical
wisdom suggested they should have began with Anderson and Stokes, the most
penetrative bowlers and the second new ball was just four overs old. Even if
they wanted a spinner, Adil Rashid could have been a more sensible choice.
India vs England 3rd Test Update News
Agreed, they had to keep a tab on the score, but that reeked
of negativity. India were still 12 runs behind and no matter how utilitarian
the latter’s lower-order is, they could have had the belief that they could run
over Ashwin and his lower-order colleagues. Instead, they sat back, waiting for
errors than inducing them. Maybe, they were a little jaded after all the
frantic intensity they had shown on Sunday. But now the prospects of a
series-levelling win seem as distant as the cloud-less horizon of the city. And
now India’s spin triumvirate will be feared as much as for their vitality with
the bat as their productivity with the ball... India vs England 3rd Test Update News
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