During the two ongoing Test matches between India and New Zealand at Pune’s Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) stadium and the third Pakistan-England Test at Rawalpindi, the domination of spin on the opening days has stood out, with the tweakers established new records, milestones and memories from “Pindi to Pune”. In the second Test between the Kiwis and India, the Indian team chose a combination of three frontline spinners in Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin on what was a spin-friendly surface, with all three having exceptional quality in their batting as well when in full flow.
The move to include Washington, playing his first Test in over three years since that iconic Border-Gavaskar Trophy sealing win at The Gabba in Brisbane against Australia in January 2021, raised questions as he was picked over a much more accomplished and senior as a spinner, Kuldeep Yadav, who has had to sit out often during Test matches due to Ashwin-Jadeja’s abilities as batters.
When Kiwis were 197/3, with Rachin Ravindra looking set for another century and only Ravichandran Ashwin having made some notable, but not-so-impacful dents in Kiwis’ innings, a lot was being said about Kuldeep’s absence from the field. However, Washington, who had bowled tightly so far, responded to the chatter in the most dominating way possible, taking the next seven wickets with his masterful movement with the ball. He triggered Kiwis’ collapse from 197/3 to 259 all out in the first innings.
Washington went on to register his career-best Test figures and his maiden Test fifer. He and Ashwin, two Tamil Nadu stars, teamed up to take all ten Kiwi wickets on day one, making it only sixth instance of spinners getting all the ten wickets on day one of a Test in India.
Sundar had cleaned bowled five batters in his spell, including Rachin, Tom Blundell, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee and Ajaz Patel. He joined stars and older players like Jadeja, Anil Kumble, Jasubhai Patel and Bapu Nadkarni to be among players to have accomplished most “bowled” dismissals during a Test innings in India.
Sundar’s figures were the third-best by an Indian against New Zealand in Tests and the joint-best along with Ashwin in the 21st century. Spinner Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan, who also happened to play for Tamil Nadu, had registered all-time best figures of 8/72 against Kiwis in 1965 at Delhi, followed by Erapalli Prasanna’s 8/76 at Auckland in 1975.
Ashwin also overtook Nathan Lyon to become the leading wicket-taker in the history of the ICC World Test Championship with 189 scalps in just 39 matches, as compared to Australian legend Nathan Lyon’s 187 wickets in 43 matches. He also overtook Lyon (530 wickets) to become Test’s seventh-highest wicket-taker, with 531 scalps.
On the other hand at Rawalpindi, the pitch was expected to spin from early on. While England had made over 500 runs within a single day (including four centuries) the last time they were at the venue back in 2022, it was the complete opposite this time around.
England was up for a surprise as they collapsed from 70/1 to 118/6, as Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Ben Duckett, Harry Brook and Ben Stokes all departed in quick succession. Jamie Smith (89 in 119 balls, with five fours and six sixes) and Gus Atkinson (39 in 71 balls, with five fours) counter-attacked and averted a complete collapse by taking England to 267 in 68.2 overs.
All the overs bowled in the innings were bowled by spinners, the first time in 142 years that no pacers bowled any over in a Test inning. The previous such instance was in February 1882 in Sydney, where two Australian slow bowlers – Joey Palmer and Edwin Evans – bowled 115 overs between them to bowl England out for 133, as per Wisden.
Sajid Khan continued his brilliant run in the series with figures of 6/128 at Rawalpindi, the third-best spell by a spinner at the venue, behind Noman Ali (6/107 against Australia in 2022) and Mushtaq Ahmed (6/87 against New Zealand in 1996).
Nomal Ali got three wickets for 88 runs in 28 overs and Zahid Mahmood took 1/44 in his ten overs. Only Salman Agha went wicketless, giving away three runs in only one over he bowled.
It was the sixth time Pakistan spinners took all 10 wickets in the first innings of a Test and 4th time that happened against England.
At the end of the day, Pakistan had been reduced to 73/3, with spinners Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed getting two of these wickets.
Will spinners continue getting help in these two matches and win matches for their teams single-handedly? Only time will tell.
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