Sports

Near the end of the opening day’s play on Indore crumbler, when Australia were cruising at 108 for 1 after India were shot down for 109, Sunil Joshi, former India spinner and selector began thinking about sending a text message to Ravindra Jadeja.

Eventually, at stumps after Australia were 156 for 4, Joshi would send a message across. ‘Your length could be better. Too full, now’.

‘Jadeja had changed his lengths near the end of the first day and got the wickets,’ Joshi tells The Indian Express. ‘But it was on my mind.’ On Star Sports Kannada, where Joshi commentated on the game, he would also cue up a pitch map. Jadeja was 58% percent on full length during the phase Australia ran to 108. He changed track in the third session, drawing back the length to 50% on a good length, and Australia lost three further wickets.

When Jadeja hits the good length, putting the doubt in batsmen’s minds, with his speed, he will get the wickets. With other bowlers, the batsmen can adjust but Jadeja’s speed makes it difficult for them,’ Joshi says.

India’s Ravichandran Ashwin, right, celebrate with teammate Shreyas Iyer, left, dismissal of Australia’s Usman Khawaja, bottom, during the third day of third cricket test match between India and Australia in Indore, India, Friday, March 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav)

‘We gave away quite a few runs in the first innings in those conditions,’ head coach Rahul Dravid would say in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.

The Indian spinners have been more often than not really good this series but there have been phases like in the first innings of the last Test or even in the Australian chase, they have been found a bit lagging. The Indian batsmen didn’t give them runs for them to ease into their role and even an average couple of spells looks damning in the final analysis but such is their quality that they should be a touch disappointed.

There have been two noticeable things in those phases: The lengths and the wide angle of the bowlers (the left-armers Jadeja and Axar Patel in particular).

‘Ashwin was also a touch too full,’ Joshi says. It was visible in the last innings of the last Test as well, apart from the earlier few innings every now and then. The Australians could lean forward and drive him and as long as they were careful to let the top-hand come through and bat-face go down straight, they weren’t in trouble. In the Delhi collapse and in Nagpur fiasco, they had erred going across the line. But once they sorted that out, when Ashwin’s lengths were full, they could negotiate him.