Ashwin dissected India's performance with two prominent experts.
Ravichandran Ashwin sat down with former Indian cricket team analyst Himanish Ganjoo and cricket writer Jarrod Kimber to dissect what worked for South Africa in the India series and how their spinners got more assistance than their Indian counterparts. The main point of discussion was how Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj, particularly the former, extracted more turn than the Indian spinners, which was evident throughout the rubber.
Harmer and Maharaj generated more than 4° of turn on average, while Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, and Kuldeep Yadav were below four degrees. Those two South African spinners bowled more than 30% of deliveries with more than 5° of turn, compared to Kuldeep, Jadeja, and Sundar, who bowled 18%, 15%, & 15% such balls, respectively.
The debate again came about on how Indian spinners bowl quicker than South Africans – one of the reasons why Washington and Kuldeep, despite getting more dip, didn’t really extract as much turn as Simon Harmer or Keshav Maharaj, while Harmer’s high-arm release (2.3 meters) also helped him. For the record, Sundar got the most dip, followed by Maharaj, Kuldeep, Harmer, and Jadeja in the recently concluded series.
Ashwin later explained how dip is not the only thing that induces turn; he talked about how a certain amount of backspin leads to ‘drop’ on the ball, and the bowlers who get the ball to ‘fizz’ in the forward direction get more purchase. He added that Sundar, Kuldeep, and Maharaj don’t do that, which was one of the reasons why they didn’t perform as well as Harmer.
Building on his point, Ravichandran Ashwin explained how bowlers can look threatening with their craft and remain wicketless because of their inability to adjust to get wickets. He broke spin bowling in nine facets, and the final one was about the art of taking wickets rather than just looking good.
“You can look great at doing a certain skill, but if you do not know how to get wickets, that’s a skill not spoken about enough, which needs to be developed right from bowling the volume of overs. That’s why it leads me to your topic, Jarrod – of not bowling the volume of overs that people do in Ranji Trophy.”
On the same topic, Himanish explained how Indian spinners – Axar Patel, Washington, and Jadeja – bowled more good-length balls than Maharaj and Harmer, but still didn’t get as many wickets. That validated Ashwin’s point that a bowler can be accurate and land enough balls in one area, but that doesn’t guarantee wickets, for it is a completely different art.
“You’ll see a lot of people putting cones on the pitches by the side and ask you to deliver the ball there. That, in my view, is the most overrated drill that you can ever find because that’s asking you to get into a mechanical mode of putting the ball there. Wicket-taking is not putting the ball there; wicket-taking is playing with the batter, right?” Ashwin added.
It’s well-known that Indian batters don’t sweep as much as other teams because they have historically been adept at using their feet. The recent trend is changing, but South Africa still swept more than India.
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The Proteas played around 6.8% of sweep shots compared to India’s 4.8%, but their average was less than the home side’s, because they were obviously a bit more predictable with their shots. South Africa averaged 27.83 on sweep shots, compared to India’s 36.50.
Eventually, Ashwin concluded that the BCCI is unlikely to take a knee-jerk decision and would prefer a long-term strategy. He also said that the key is to find solutions to the problems rather than entirely blaming someone like Gautam Gambhir.
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