Rashid finds his rhythm to turn the corner at last
ADIL RASHID allowed himself a smile as he spoke about the moment Virat Kohli, the darling of Indian cricket, stood on his own stumps on the fourth morning of the first Test in Rajkot.
Rashid, who bowled better than he has ever done for England to finish with first-innings figures of four for 114, took a moment to realise that Kohli had dislodged the leg bail after working one of his deliveries to the on-side.
It needed wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow to spot the transgression, leaving India 361 for six in reply to 537 and giving England an advantage they never relinquished on another hard-fought day.
‘Jonny pointed at the stumps and I think Virat was in a bit of shock that he’d stood on his wickets,’ said Rashid. ‘It was a good feeling.’
While Rashid couldn’t recall removing any previous batsman hit wicket, for Kohli the dismissal must have brought a sense of deja vu, having fallen in the same manner to Graeme Swann during a one-day international at Cardiff in 2011.
And it was part of a display from Rashid that vindicated his place in England’s three-man spin-bowling attack. By the end of the fourth day, he had comfortably outbowled India’s own leg-spinner, Amit Mishra.
‘It was nice to get a good bowl and get into a rhythm,’ said Rashid, who has enjoyed the tutelage of the former Pakistan off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq out here.
‘I’ve been working a bit more on setting fields, on game plans, and how to get batsmen out in these conditions,’ he said. ‘The key is finding a pace I’m comfortable with, a pace that spins the ball most and gives the batsman trouble.’
Rashid had begun India’s slide from 318 for two on Friday by removing opener Murali Vijay for 126 with a well-pitched googly. And, after his stroke of luck against Kohli, he got the dangerous No 9 Ravindra Jadeja, caught at short leg off the shoulder of the bat from one that bounced more than expected, and Umesh Yadav, to a tailender’s swipe.
For the second Test innings in succession, Rashid had taken four wickets. But whereas his four for 52 from 11.5 overs against Bangladesh in Dhaka relied on careless strokeplay, his haul here in Rajkot was reward for a proper spell of Test-match spin bowling.
As Rashid himself put it: ‘The more you play, the more comfortable you feel.’
Slowly but surely, in this part of the world at least, England’s leggie looks like part of the furniture.