India crush England in fourth Test to seal the series 3-1
Ashwin and Patel do the damage as India win Test series 3-1
The just concluded Test series may have been billed as a battle between the two rival skippers, Virat Kohli and Joe Root for the best Test batsman’s mantle, but the Indian spinners had the last laugh to script a 3-1 win and qualify for the final of the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) final at the Lord’s in June. Kane Williamson’s New Zealand, who had sealed the other spot much earlier on points, await them in what could be an interesting contest.
A piece of cold statistics will sump up how much influence was wielded by the senior off-spinner Ravi Ashwin and debutant Axar Patel, the left arm spinning all-rounder who came into the squad as an after-thought as Ravindra Jadeja failed to recover from his finger injury. Together, they accounted for a whopping 59 of the England wickets to fall in a four-Test series with Ashwin taking 32 of them and Patel finishing with 27.
Ashwin, who had rediscovered his mojo right from the series Down Under, was just three wickets shy of the legendary leg break bowler Bhagwat Chandrasekhar’s highest tally by an Indian bowler against England (35), which came in a five-Test series in 1972-73.
Patel, a left arm spinner all right but by no means of the orthodox variety, used his partially slinging action and variations of pace to stun the cricketing fraternity with a record — he now has the most wickets in a series for a debutant. He bettered the haul of 26 by Sri Lanka’s mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis, which he took during a home series against India’s much vaunted batting line-up in 2008.
Patel took yet another fivewicket haul as India thrashed an innings England by an innings and 25 runs in the fourth and final Test match on the third day at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
“I think the confidence helped me. I got wickets in the first game and kept on carrying the confidence,” he said after the match. “I only bowled faster ones more often in the previous games but here we needed to vary our pace.”