Parthiv Patel praises Indian spinners and rates them above their English counterparts

The Indian spinners who have been relentless against the English batsmen did justice to their reputation yet again on the 2nd day of the fourth Test in Mumbai as all the wickets in their 1st innings fell to either Ravichandran Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja. The No.1 spinner finished with 6 wickets while his partner Jadeja chipped in with 4.

Stand-in-wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel made a withering assessment on the English spinners after India finished Day 2 at the score of 146/1 on a pitch that offered enough assistance to the spinners. After the end of the opening day’s play, Ashwin had predicted the pitch to become better for the batsmen on day two and three and it was apparent from the way Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay batted during the last session. But Parthiv felt it was purely down to the quality of the bowlers.

“More than the surface, I think the quality of our bowling is far better,” Parthiv said. “Our bowlers get definitely more revolutions on the ball than what their spinners are doing. And obviously, we vary our pace very well. We have deceived a lot of players in the air, rather than just waiting for the help off the wicket. I think there’s definitely a lot of difference in the quality.”

Speaking on the Indian spinners who have been far more productive than their English counterparts, Parthiv said that the English spinners had been exposed in Mohali. “We have definitely tried to spin the ball more than what they have tried to do, for sure,” Parthiv said. “That’s what even I felt in the last game also. Last game, the way our bowlers bowled in Mohali, where there was no turn and you could see how they bowled in Mohali when we were batting second, where they actually got exposed because there was no help in it.

“And we definitely have traditional bowlers who can vary their pace brilliantly. That’s what [R] Ashwin, Jaddu [Ravindra Jadeja] and Jayant [Yadav] have been doing. That’s why we have kept them quiet. As you know, on a red-soil wicket, it is very, very difficult to contain the scoring rate, and we did that in the second session [on day one] and that is the reason we got wickets in the third session.”

England coach Trevor Bayliss had asked his team to play an attacking brand of cricket but to do so they had to take few risks but when it came to the Indian batsmen they played according to the situation and didn’t take an undue risk as a release of pressure was around the corner with England’s spinners.

“That is definitely one of the reasons,” Parthiv Patel said when asked if the Indian batsmen need not take risks because they have been fed loose balls. “We don’t have to go over the top and try and play a sweep or a reverse sweep because we know that a bad ball is coming soon.”

India will look to bat the whole day tomorrow and post a mammoth first innings total to put pressure on the visitors. England, on the other hand, has to pull up their socks and make some early inroads if they have to make a match out of it.