Indian spinner Axar Patel has spoken significantly about the pitch of Hyderabad, where the India vs England first Test is currently being played. After piling up England for 246 runs, India ended the first day with 119 runs on the board. Indian spinners played a vital role in stacking the English team on this score.
Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel together showed a total of 8 English players the way back to the pavilion.
Axar said that there was no worrying turn in the pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and the Indian bowlers showed commendable performance in bowling England out for 246 runs. He hopes that the batsmen will play for an extended period on the second day, which will further strengthen the team’s lead.
“We knew the wicket was good and some balls were spinning while some weren’t. The wicket was slow, but we were able to adjust. I think 246 was a good score on which we stopped England and we planned to play normal cricket, we didn’t want to do anything different.”
“The wicket was not spinning badly and that was normal. As I said, it’s slow, but the ball isn’t skidding and we were able to adjust. It is a challenging wicket for both bowlers and batsmen, as we need to maintain a good line and length on it, otherwise with a fast outfield we might leak runs. Similarly, the batsmen also need to adjust and then the runs will be scored automatically.”
Axar Patel also praised Indian opener Yashasvi Jaiswal during this period. He said that the best thing about Yashasvi’s innings was that he made England’s spin trio completely uncomfortable. Jaiswal’s blistering 76 not out off 70 balls put India in the driving seat.
Axar said, “We enjoyed the way Yashasvi was batting and he targeted the spinners right from the first over. It was good to trouble them in the beginning.”
Axar admitted that he was just trying to support his senior partners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. “I have learned a lot from seniors like Ash (Ashwin) and Jaddu bhai (Jadeja). I was trying to control the game from my end because they were bowling in tandem. I was not thinking about taking wickets as they were taking wickets.”
“I know if you are playing with three spinners, one of them will get fewer overs. They were also telling me about the situation on the wicket and what I should do in such a case.”
Axar was quite pleased to dismiss Bairstow in particular. The left-arm spinner’s ball spun sharply after inducing a tap towards the leg side and uprooted Bairstow’s off stump.
“That ball came out well. We were saying that it would be great if the ball turned from there because some of the ball was turning. Bairstow was playing standing on the fourth stump to avoid LBW. So I planned to bowl to the stumps because he had played some cut shots close to the stumps. That was the plan and the ball that turned from there was good. You must have seen my celebration.”
England’s batsmen used reverse sweeps several times in an attempt to tackle the Indian spinners and Axar said the aggressive mindset of the rivals increased their chances of taking wickets. “I was talking to the captain that they were playing sweep and reverse sweep and we were looking at where the reverse sweep was going so we kept the fielder a little bit backward at point.”
“We spoke about it in the team meeting and we had a plan in place. It was good that they wanted to attack and that gave us a chance to get them out.”
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