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Feel Jayant And Ishant Should be Replaced in Next Test: Azharuddin

‘I am not at all happy with how the spinners bowled.’

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Former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin feels that Indian team will be forced to make a couple of changes in their playing XI for the second Test against Australia after the hammering it took in the opening match.

Any batting debacle leaves a team on the backfoot. I am not saying series is lost but one needs to look at the kind of track that you want to play. I reckon Chinnaswamy won’t have this kind of turn. So my gut feeling is that Jayant Yadav and Ishant Sharma may be dropped from the playing XI.
Mohammed Azharuddin to PTI
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India lost the match by a whopping 333 runs and the second Test will be played in Bengaluru, from March 4.

Asked to explain his observation, Azhar said: "Going by their batting performance, I expect them to play an extra batsman -- that is Karun Nair. He should be replacing Jayant in all likelihood.

On the tracks that we are playing, Ishant’s back of the length stuff is not going to work. It is better that a swing bowler like Bhuvneshwar is brought into the team by Virat.
Mohammed Azharuddin to PTI

For someone who has played 99 Tests and captained India for close to a decade, Azharuddin was critical of the performance by the Indian spinners on a rank turner.

I think a similar pitch was prepared when Michael Clarke got his 6 for 9 in Mumbai. This was a bad pitch to bat on. But I am not at all happy with how the spinners bowled on a track like this -- especially Ravindra Jadeja.
Mohammed Azharuddin to PTI
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In fact, the stylish Hyderabadi feels that Steve O'Keefe showed exactly how to bowl on a turner.

"O'Keefe bowled the line that Jadeja should have bowled. On this track, Jadeja's channel would have never got him wickets and that's precisely what has happened. An orthodox left-arm spinner when he is getting 4 lbws means that he was bowling straight, knowing pitch will do the rest," said Azharuddin, who has 22 Test centuries along with 6000 plus runs.

"The Indians in their mind were all playing for the turn. It meant, O'Keefe read the pitch better than Jadeja. As far as Ashwin is concerned, 100 plus runs on this track is poor show," he said.

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