Not limited to limited overs

Pune: The moment there was confirmation on the giant screen that Tim Southee’s catch of Ravindra Jadeja at long-on off Mitchell Santner was clean, New Zealand had done the unthinkable. They had won a series against India in India.

There was another moment which unfolded in the wake of that catch. It was somewhat ignored at the moment because of the gravity of the victory itself, but it wouldn’t lay hidden for long.

Thirty-seven wickets fell to spinners at the MCA stadium in Pune in the three days of the second Test. That is the joint-highest number of wickets taken by spinners in a Test match in India.   

Coincidentally, the last time the spinners had such an impact on a Test, India were up against New Zealand in Nagpur in October of 1969. But the conjunction doesn’t end there. New Zealand came ashore with a string of relatively unknown spinners and won their first-ever Test in India in that game. That was a monumental victory, as was this one.   

Sure, Ajaz Patel, Santner and Glenn Phillips are not as obscure as the wicket-takers in that Test because two of the three spinners ply their wares regularly in white-ball cricket to remain relatable.

There, in that sentence, lies the basis for what could well be the most important factor for the success of spinners in this Test. 

Of the 40 wickets, one scalp went to a pacer (Tim Southee), two were run-outs (Rishabh Pant and William O’Rourke), and the rest were taken up by spinners.

Of these 37 scalps, Test specialists, the likes of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Ajaz Patel, picked up ten wickets. The rest, peculiarly enough, fell to those who are pigeonholed as white-ball bowlers.

Santner (13), Washington Sundar (11) and Glenn Phillips (3) picked up twenty-seven wickets between them. And two of these bowlers, the ones who have picked up the most wickets, were not even supposed to be playing this Test.

Both Santner and Washington were called up to open for the headliners -- the red-ball specialists -- on the black-soil pitch. They ended up owning the show. How though?

Well, it’s all in the pitch, and the ideal length for that surface.

“When you’re playing Tests, you look to land the ball on that four-metre length, but when you’re playing white-ball cricket, you drag the length back a bit - maybe in the 5.5-6-metre range,” explains a former India spinner, who played 48 games across all three formats. 

That ‘5.5-6-metre’ spot, incidentally, is where the curators had watered out and heavy-rolled profusely the day before the game.

“That pitch was perfect for people who operate in white-ball cricket, but for those who are used to bowling in Tests, it’s a tough transition to make because it always feels like you’re dropping it too short. It just feels wrong so you start, almost subconsciously, pushing the ball a bit further up.”

The bowler also revealed the way you grip the ball changes because of the difference in lacquer layers, the prominence of the seam, and the general ball-in-hand feel between white balls and red balls. He also insisted that pace variation take up prominence in white-ball cricket, while red-ball bowlers tend to rely on loop and dip more.

That checks out because both Santner and Washington alluded to this during their pressers.

“I tend to do that (change the pace) a lot in white-ball cricket," said Santner. "We kind of spoke about that kind of just under 90 kmph. It looked like it was spinning and then for a period there when you went over the top it was bouncing a lot so we spoke about maybe going a little bit slower. But I just think at the start it was about bowling fast into it and then it the pace kind of changed as the day went on with the pitch and I think Washi (Washington) did that as well, he did that very well.”

Another thing they both did in common was keep the stumps in play. It is their natural modus operandi in limited-overs cricket, also a reason for their inclusion in the side, but to see it work in their favour to this degree was a surprise.

It will be interesting to see if the teams persist with these two for the third and final Test in Mumbai for the conditions could be vastly different, but they have certainly made a case for themselves and maybe even their future.