Spinners hand India the advantage

After a not so friendly pitch in the first Test, the 22-yards at the Dr YSR ACA VDCA Stadium on Friday showed its true colour and maximised the home advantage to help India take a firm grip on the second Test against England. When stumps were drawn for the day, the visitors were in tatters at 103/5, requiring a mammoth 352 runs to draw level with the hosts. This was after India were bowled out for 455 in the first innings after lunch on day two.

Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jayant Yadav were the talk of the town as they extracted maximum assistance from the pitch to leave England badly bruised in confidence. The trio sent 35 overs between them, gave away 69 runs and took three wickets. 

It was Mohammed Shami who got the first breakthrough when he uprooted Alastair Cook’s off-stump with a peach of a delivery. The ball pitched just outside the off-stump, came back in sharply and sent the top half of the off stump to the short third man region as Cook looked in disbelief. 

From then on it was just the spinners. Jadeja nearly got Haseeb Hameed before tea but the teenager ran himself out soon after tea in a miscommunication with Joe Root, who sent him back. Wriddhiman Saha did well, in his predecessor M S Dhoni style by moving in front of the stumps and flicking it towards it. 

Ashwin sent Ben Duckett back by breaching the left-hander’s citadel in a trademark off-spinner’s delivery. The ball pitched on middle and leg, took the turn, missed the bat and crashed on to the off-stump as England were in a spot of bother at 72/3. 

It soon became 79/4 when Joe Root, who batted well for his half-century, holed out to long-on and debutant Jayant Yadav reviewed his call on Moeen Ali to leave England at 80/5. 

Earlier, Moeen Ali pegged the Indian run-flow with three wickets in the first session. England seamers, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, got a little movement from the new ball (it was taken in the penultimate over on day one) but it was the spinners who started to get some assistance from the pitch. 

India skipper Virat Kohli could only add 16 runs to his overnight score when he tried to drive Ali only to see the ball take the edge and land safely in Ben Stokes’ hand at first slip. Stokes had one ball earlier, grassed Ravichandran Ashwin in a similar fashion when the Tamil Nadu player was on 17. He went on to make 58 and made England pay for the gaffe. 

Ali then trapped Wriddhiman Saha in front and removed Jadeja two balls later. The off-spinner was lucky with the southpaw’s wicket as the ball was missing leg stump but Jadeja didn’t go for a review. 

Ashwin stitched an important 64-run partnership with debutant Yadav, who showed good character in his first appearance, gave Ben Stokes his first wicket of the innings when he got a faint nick and Johnathan Bairstow made no mistake behind the stumps. Yadav was dismissed for 35 when he tried to slog Adil Rashid only to get a top edge for James Anderson to take an easy catch.