The raucous crowd at the Arun Jaitley Stadium which was filled probably to 70 per cent of its capacity were egging on for a wicket every delivery. The morning chill was making its way to a mildly sultry afternoon and more and more spectators are tricking in hoping to catch a good day’s action.
Amidst this, the Australian skipper Pat Cummins walked out to the middle, with his team tottering at 95/6. While the weather may have been perfect for a good first session of play, Cummins must have felt the heat, as if walking into a hot furnace. Australia’s best batter on show, Peter Handscomb had departed a ball earlier to a Ravindra Jadeja delivery that spun away sharply. Australia had lost 5 wicket for 34 runs in 10 overs.
Cummins took guard, Jadeja, who had tasted blood, bowled a quicker one, straight, Cummins lined him up for a slog sweep; bent on one knee the captain threw the kitchen sink. The ball kept low, no connection whatsoever with the bat, but enough to dismantle the wickets behind him.
It was brain fade moment for Cummins, and in many ways that wicket was a microcosm of the Australian innings. From 61/1 in 12 overs, Australia succumbed to 113 all out in 31.1 overs. That’s nine wickets for 52 runs in 19.1 overs. Cummins had surrender even before he had walked out to the middle; like a defeated general on a bloody battlefield, that ugly swipe was Cummins’ way of waving the white flag. Enough is enough, he would have said while walking back.
With David Warner, Steve Smith and Marnus Labhuschagne not among the runs, Australia had no chance to put up a fight against India – but a surrender of this abject proportion is dumbfounding.
Jadeja returned a career best 7/42, Ashwin claimed three in the second to add to his three from the first innings. Jadeja went on to complete a 10-wicket match haul.
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Over 23 – Matthew Renshaw, who had come in as a concussion substitute for Warner, lasted all of 20 minutes on Day 2. But those 20 minutes would have felt like an eternity. He faced eight deliveries, 7 of them from Ashwin. First delivery of the over, round the wicket, vicious spin from outside off – wicketkeeper KS Bharat with a good take.
2nd delivery, LBW appeal with a one that went away with the angle.
3rd delivery, closer to the off stump and bit more loopy, Renshaw is drawn forward.
Off the 4th, Renshaw tried to break the shackles and came down the track; Ashwin dragged the length back and angled in once again.
Off the fifth, a quicker one, fuller which Renshaw defended.
Off the sixth, another fuller delivery and Renshaw guessed it was to straighten and went for the sweep, but it goes on with the arm, plumb in front and wasted review – the genius of Ashwin in full flow.
Ashwin’s guile is something to behold. Something to learn and to dissect. His reading of the game and batter is what gets wickets - his set up. He operated round the wicket for majority of his spell to Smith and Labhuschagne, but the occasional over the wicket change in angle put both the batters in two minds. And then he went wide, round the wicket to create an even sharper angle. He bowls one with almost a parallel seam position, slightly fuller at middle and leg, Smith thinks it will straighten after pitching, but it’s an off break, a big one at that and there is daylight between Smith’s attempted sweep and the ball – one on umpire’s call.
In the first innings, Ashwin had bowled one wider with a similar side spin grip and Smith had lunged forward only to see the ball go the other way. Probably that would have been on his mind in the 2nd innings, but Ashwin’s guile is too good for a guesswork.
Ashwin returned with six wickets from this match – way behind Jadeja’s 10 – but his two wickets each in the first innings – Smith and Labhuschagne just before lunch, and Head and Smith in the first hour were the two most pivotal moments in the game. Australia, in both the innings, had a breezy start and it was a pleasant surprise from their timid Nagpur performance. Had it not been for Ashwin’s terrific spell first up, Australia could very well have been in the game.
The 36-year-old has seeped in so much into the Australian minds that they stopped trusting their defences and were more concerned on what the offie had to offer. Playing sweep shot or having a good control over the shot generally gives the batter an advantage on sub-continental tracks and against spinners. But by no means is it the only shot you can play or try to play, and every time the Australians went for the sweep, Ashwin and Jadeja came closer to taking a wicket.
Unlike Ashwin, Jadeja’s mantra is simple – or so it seems, darts on the stumps, a bit of variation in pace and let the pitch do the rest, and the pitch did a lot. Jadeja’s major weapon is the one that goes on straight. Batters play for the spin and get undone by the quicker straighter one and once Jadeja understands where to pitch the ball, that’s curtains for the opposition.
Labhuschagne kept hanging back and it was a matter of time he would get one that would keep low. Handscomb was invited with a loopy delivery bowled a tad slower and it dipped and turned the other way.
The procession after that was about batters getting stuck with sweep shot. For Carey to attempt a reverse against Jadeja bowling around the wicket, fetching the ball from off side was always going to be a recipe for disaster. Add to that a bit of bounce and Carey was made to look foolish when he was cleaned up. But, that’s the trouble with the sweep shot, the variables at play, if it does not come off, are way too many. That Carey wicket was his fifth of the innings and he went to add two more in the form of Nathan Lyon and Matthew Kuhnemann.
Jadeja now has 17 wickets in the series already to go with a 70 in the first innings.
India are well and truly en route to their 16th straight series win at home and the trifecta of Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar Patel has had a telling contribution in most of those wins. It was in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2013 that India’s winning streak at home had started ten years back, and during that time frame, Ashwin and Jadeja are the leading wicket takers. Ashwin has bagged 272 wickets at 19.56, Jadeja 186 at 19.50 and Axar was 40 in just eight matches at a mind-blogging average of 13.87.
With the bat too, Jadeja and Ashwin in the top 10 are only behind Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Murali Vijay and Ajinkya Rahane. Jadeja has 1541 runs at 42.80 while Ashwin has 1249 runs at 24.98.
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