England vs India - 1 August 2018 - Edgbaston day one
Over 7
With Umesh Yadav looking a tad lacklustre early on and Ishant Sharma probing early driven by the confidence-boosting county stint, Virat Kohli needed a moment of inspiration to catch England's cozy openers – Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings – off-guard.
As the Edgbaston crowd settled in underneath cloudy skies, Virat Kohli tossed the ball to his trusted sub-continental wingman, Ravichandran Ashwin.
Spare a moment to take this in.
This was Edgbaston, where every strand of grass stands up in honour of James Anderson, and India’s skipper decides seven overs into the first innings on day one that it was time for some spin.
11 balls later.
Ashwin landed one on the leg-stump of that tough nut, Alastair Cook, spun the ball away from his defensive prod and hit the top of off-stump.
The former English skipper, memories of his 190 at Kolkata six years back a pale shadow, could only gaze at the pitch in awe. Ashwin, of all bowlers, had picked up India's first wicket on this long tour.
An innings and a day later, the off-spinner was once again all over Alastair Cook late on day two, cleaning him up in a mirror image of his first innings dismissal.
This time, he followed it up with wickets of Keaton Jennings and Joe Root, picking all of the first three wickets to fall in the England innings. He didn't pick another wicket the whole innings. He didn't need to.
The damage had been done and Ishant Sharma exploited England's vulnerable middle-order with a special spell of his own.
For England fans hoping this is a one-off from the Indian off-spinner, there is disappointing news. All signs point towards Ashwin continuing to bamboozle England's left-handed heavy batting line-up.
The hosts have packed their Test line-up with as many as seven lefties – Alastair Cook, Keaton Jennings, Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes, Sam Curran, Adil Rashid and James Anderson – with at least five of them certain to play through the series barring injuries.
Ashwin's record in South Africa, England and Australia, before the South African series earlier this year, makes for poor viewing. With 24 wickets in 9 matches, an average of 56.58 (28.01 worse than his overall Test average), the numbers don’t paint a pretty picture. In his last two series’ abroad – in South Africa and England – Ashwin took after a perfectly cooked stew simmered on stove, hot and ready to serve.
The Tamil Nadu spinner has worked to change his fortunes in unfamiliar conditions, playing a bit of the County season for Worcestershire to familiarise himself with the conditions in England well in advance. He picked up 20 wickets in 4 matches but more importantly found the factors that could bring about his metamorphosis.
"When I came here for the county stint last year, the one thing I realised was the speed at which a spinner had to bowl here," Ashwin said after his opening day at Edgbaston as revealed by BCCI.tv.
The wickets are extremely slow, even on the first day. You can have a bit of bounce, but if the pace is not right the batsmen have a lot of time to play the same ball on the front and the back foot. That’s something I realised very quickly when I came here.Ravichandran Ashwin
His pace variations were as profound in the Edgbaston Test – varying between mid-80s to early 90s – as his out of the box thinking. The off-spinner seemed pretty accustomed to the drift and at times even seemed to be bowling outswingers.
The damp Edgbaston surface and the Duke ball played their part in spurring Ashwin on. But to give credit where it's due, Kohli was quick to identify the role Ashwin could don on this surface and wasn't hesitant to use him in a capricious, unpopular manner.
Roll back to the 2013 Champions Trophy finals at the very same venue and you get an idea of why a damp surface helps the spinner. On a wet wicket, Ashwin and Jadeja, now discards in the limited-overs sides, spun a web around England batsmen picking up four wickets between them.
Ashwin's coach then, Sunil Subramaniam, had told Deccan Chronicle why such surfaces aid the spinners. “The important thing that a spinner must do is to assess the conditions before drawing out a plan. In England, the air is thin. Under those circumstances what happens is, the ball comes out of a spinner’s hand a touch slower than what it would be in sub-continent. Therein lies the opportunity to deceive a batsman.”
Ashwin had used his County stint to accustom himself to the pace he should be bowling at. The results are there for all to see. He was outstanding in a fast-bowling dominated Test match, picking up seven wickets across both innings and posing a consistent threat to England’s hapless left-handers. He has worked on putting more body into the ball and as such has found magic on these surfaces, helping him beat batsmen in flight.
If England need lessons as the series progresses, they needn't look past Steven Smith and Glenn Maxwell's masterclass at Ranchi last year against Ashwin and Jadeja. With nimble feet, confident strides and powerful, assured sweep shots, the duo countered anything and everything India threw at them. But with seven of England's eleven being southpaws, the odds are stacked against their batsmen as they prepare to counter Ashwin at a venue where they haven't beaten a sub-continental side since July 2011 – the Mecca of Cricket.
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(Rohit Sankar is a freelance cricket writer. He can be reached at @imRohit_SN)
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