The third day of the Indore Test between India and New Zealand was yet another fantastic advertisement for Test cricket.
New Zealand began the day at 28 for no loss, trailing India’s first innings total of 557 by a massive 529 runs. The visitors were dominant early on in the day when their openers Martin Guptill and Tom Latham stitched together their first century opening partnership on this tour.
Shortly before lunch though, India tasted success for the first time on day three when Latham attempted to work Ravichandran Ashwin to the leg-side, but the ball turned, took the leading edge of the bat and lobbed back to the bowler who gleefully accepted the return catch.
In the first forty minutes of the second session though, the pendulum shifted decidedly towards India. In the first 9.1 overs post lunch, India picked up four wickets to undo all the good work done by the Kiwi openers and derailed the New Zealand innings.
It was classic Test match cricket; there was not a dull moment during the day and the momentum kept shifting between the two teams frequently.
The collapse has become somewhat of a regular feature with the Kiwis in this series. The New Zealand team management should be extremely concerned at the regular collapses – especially losing the wickets of the specialist batsmen in a heap.
In every one of the five innings the Kiwis have batted in the ongoing Test series, they have suffered collapses – ranging from small collapses of 3 wickets for 11 runs, to as big as losing 9 wickets for 93 runs. On Monday, it was a collapse of 5 for 30 that put them on the back foot.
And the bowler responsible for triggering that collapse was Ravichandran Ashwin.
The off-spinner didn’t have too productive a session early in the day, but he came roaring back in the second session when he picked up three wickets – including those of the New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and the experienced Ross Taylor.
That particular spell of bowling from Ashwin – in the post-lunch session – was a good illustration of all the virtues of a top-class spin bowler: patience, discipline, control, flight, drift and intelligence. In that particular spell of 11 overs, the off-spinner generally landed the ball in the good length area and hardly gave the batsmen any freebies. If anything, he erred on the fuller side, attempting to hit the rough and trying to lure the batsmen to drive.
With his performance on Monday, Ashwin also climbed one step up in the chart of India’s top wicket-takers in Test cricket; he overtook teammate Ishant Sharma’s tally of 209 wickets and currently sits as India’s eighth-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.
Courtesy Ashwin’s terrific returns of 6 for 81 – the off-spinner’s 20th five-wicket haul in Test cricket – India find themselves in the driver’s seat. They bowled the visitors out for 299, and sit pretty with an overall lead of 276 adding the second innings score of 18-0.