Cerebral and patient: How R Ashwin baited Mushfiqur Rahim, Shadman Islam and Mominul Haque on a pitch with no help for spinners | Cricket News

At 1 pm even as several hundreds of fans were making a delayed entry into the MA Chidambaram Stadium after spending long hours in queues to pick daily tickets, India sprung a surprise with the timing of their declaration. With a lead of 514, they definitely had enough on board when Rohit Sharma called back Shubman Gill and KL Rahul at 287/4 in the second innings. Few had expected India to declare then as the pitch hadn’t shown any signs of lening to their bowlers.
Maybe, India believed even if they delayed it an hour or so, it wasn’t going to make much of a difference. Maybe, they wanted to have a go at the Bangladesh batsmen after tiring them out on the field. In the first innings, on what was the best day for batting, Indian bowlers had overcome extreme heat conditions to take control. But for them to close out the match now, they needed to toil hard. It wasn’t going to come easy on this pitch, which hasn’t undergone as much wear and tear as they many would have predicted because of the overhead conditions. It was supposed to break up on the third day, but the overnight rains there was enough moure to prevent it from crumbling.
With Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj not finding any movement, Bangladesh openers Zakir Hasan and Shadman Islam, who offered no resance in the first essay, were beginning to grow in confidence. Zakir even took Siraj out of the attack with a six and boundary in his third over. A boundary here and there and rotating strike every now and then, Bangladesh openers were doing everything they could to frustrate the hosts. But India weren’t ready to blink yet.
As their head coach Gautam Gambhir wanted, they showed the willingness to adapt rather than being monotonous with the plans. And their fielding was equally sharp in terms of positioning and catching the half-chances that came their way.
In the post lunch session, with Bangladesh 56/0, Bumrah, returned for his second spell and immediately went around the wicket at Zakir. Sans movement, he wanted to make the natural angle work and kept it as close to the batsman as possible. He needed just six deliveries before sending one away from him, prompting Zakir to go into a edgy-drive which was caught brilliantly Yashasvi Jaiswal, diving to his left at gully.
India’s Jasprit Bumrah, centre, celebrates with teammates the wicket of Bangladesh’s Zakir Hasan on the third day of the first cricket test match between India and Bangladesh, in Chennai, India, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)
At the other end, with the pitch still not taking much of a turn, R Ashwin too had to work hard for his wickets. To put things in context, it was a day he ended up getting hit for three sixes. Bangladesh top six has five left-handers – the breed he usually has for breakfast – but they were defending him tightly. Bowling from the round the stumps, he operated on a stump-to-stump line, with a fielder positioned in between deep square-leg and fine-leg. He also had two close-in fielders at either side, a slip and a short cover. With no width on offer, if Bangladesh wanted to score off him, they would have to work the angles with the risk of a closed-bat face. As playing straight brought the two close-in fielders into play and if they were prepared to take him on the leg-side, they had to contend with a boundary rider and a short mid-wicket.
It was a case of who blinked first. And it was Shadman who ended up closing the bat-face too early in trying to work it too fine, and saw the leading edge being pouched Shubman Gill at short mid-wicket. To Mominul Haque, Ashwin stuck to the same plan, but he tested both edges bowling a tad quicker (90-95kmph) before he slowed one down to 87kmph. It gripped and turned off the surface to wink past the edge and hit the top of off-stump and Ashwin set off on a celebratory run.
It was apparent that Mushfiqur Rahim had decided to counterattack as he slogged Ravindra Jadeja for a boundary off the second delivery. Ashwin swooped in. For a spinner, who prefers to bowl with long-on and deep mid-wicket in place so that batsmen don’t get easy boundaries or sixes, Ashwin kept both inside the circle to tempt Mushfiqur. In his first attempt the batsman succeeded smashing a six over mid-wicket. Ashwin tossed the next one up as Mushfiqur came down the track. But like with Mominul, this ball was slower and Mushfiqur’s miscue was grabbed inches off the ground a diving KL Rahul at mid-on.

Four Bangladesh wickets, all hard earned India’s plans with pitch having no role to play and their fielders complimenting the hard yards put in their attack – a thoroughly professional day out for India’s bowlers.