new delhi,aug 30
India captain Virat Kohli dismissed the idea of playing an extra batsman. “I don’t believe in that balance. I have never believed in that balance.”A combination of six specialist batsmen, a bowling all-rounder and four bowlers has been India’s recipe for success over the past couple of seasons. The India captain saw no reason to change it even after an innings defeat at Headingley. The template for the first three Tests in the ongoing series had been four fast bowlers and Ravindra Jadeja as a spin-allrounder. Given the skipper’s reluctance to change it, maybe a change of personnel would be beneficial. On the face of it, Ravichandran Ashwin and Shardul Thakur for Jadeja and Ishant Sharma could make the team better-balanced without rejigging the template.In fact, there’s a paradox. Although Jadeja was the specialist all-rounder in the XI, India effectively played the first three Tests with seven specialist batsmen. Conditions restricted the left-arm spinner’s bowling minutes at Trent Bridge and Lord’s. And despite him sending down 32 overs and taking two wickets at Headingley, Jadeja hardly made much impact in a game even though he was expected to be a lot more effective. On the other hand, the left-hander is the fourth-highest scorer (133 runs) in the team at the moment ahead of Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant.Jadeja’s contributions, however, have been restricted to important cameos and a couple of crucial partnerships. Over the last two years, his batting improvement has been immense but at No. 7, he is no Ravi Shastri and maybe only marginally better than Ashwin. And as Kohli said at the post-match press conference on Saturday, sometimes you need to look beyond the numbers.Only a few days ago, Ashwin tweeted a picture of him batting left-handed at the nets with a caption: “The desire to ignite something different every day never burns out.” It’s a matter of interpretation whether a sly dig was aimed at anyone, but someone with close to 2,700 Test runs and five centuries is no mug with the bat. In his last 10 Test innings, Ashwin has scored a hundred under pressure plus a match-saving 39 not out against Australia in Sydney last winter. His sound footwork holds him in good stead.As an off-spinner, he is arguably the world’s best. “They have to pick Ashwin. It’s very hard for me to digest that the (team’s) best spinner was out of the playing eleven in the first three Tests. Who you will drop? It’s up to the Indian think-tank. The best spinner should be playing,” former India captain and ex-selection committee chairman Dilip Vengsarkar told The Indian Express.The Southampton Test in 2018 was one of the lows in Ashwin’s career. On a turning pitch, England’s Moeen Ali outperformed him with a nine-wicket match haul compared to the Indian offie’s three. But over the subsequent three years, Ashwin’ bowling has become even more well-rounded, with added variety. The pink-ball Test in Adelaide in December last year was a case in point, where in seamer-friendly conditions, he spun a web around Steve Smith and company, eventually retuning with four wickets in the first innings.
