New Delhi, Oct 12 One would have hoped that with West Indies bowled out for 248 on day three of the second and final Test by India, the hosts’ would not enforce the follow-on and bat again on a slow pitch still good for batting and give bowlers some rest.
But surprisingly, India enforced the follow-on and, after taking the first two wickets quickly, struggled to get more breakthroughs, thanks to a spirited fightback from John Campbell and Shai Hope, making 87 and 66 respectively. Though the West Indies need 97 more runs to make India bat again, questions will be raised over whether the hosts could have batted again.
Ryan ten Doeschate, India’s assistant coach, admitted that there was a discussion on batting again in the game, which they decided against doing so due to the 270-run lead in hand. But with the surface slowing down even more, as ten Doeschate observed, it made breakthroughs harder to come by for the Indian bowling line-up, as Campbell and Hope combined for an unbroken 138-run stand.
“There was a discussion to bat. Obviously, those last two wickets took a little bit longer than we would have hoped for. It probably started going towards the fact where you do look to bat again, but we felt 275 was a good lead. We thought the wicket was going to keep deteriorating. We thought by ending the WI innings, the worst was over. But it just seems to have slowed down even more.”
“It's quite challenging to get any pace up and again you have to be ready to fire the ball in. Of course, when you fire the ball in, it's got less chance of spinning. So, we have found it tricky this afternoon, and they had a nice start and end to the day, and John Campbell batted really good. So, we are back tomorrow, get our plans right and hopefully get those last few batters out and get into the win,” he said in the post-day press conference.
Looking ahead to day four’s play, ten Doeschate stressed the importance of tactical patience and pace variation from the bowlers to force errors from the visiting batters.
“It is a mental adjustment. We obviously want to work with speed. It's probably the one thing you can play with. You saw every time when they bowled a little bit slower, you get a little bit more turn, and obviously, the batter has a bit more time. So, it's about striking the balance and using the change in pace to get a mistake out of the batter.”
“You just got to be super patient. Obviously, Campbell played very well. So, it's another thing tactically we can look at. But sometimes we expect a lot from our bowlers and the wickets are a bit unresponsive. The batters are allowed to play well. So, I think hats off to the West Indies for how they fought up in the game today,” he added.
Ten Doeschate also clarified the decision not to hand Kuldeep Yadav, who picked 5-82 in the first innings, the new ball after enforcing the follow-on was due to seeing who can maximise the new ball’s hardness, which led to skipper Shubman Gill handing the shiny red cherry to Ravindra Jadeja.
“I'll be honest. The thinking there was the hardness of the ball. So we felt Kuldeep still extracted some spin towards the back end of the first innings. We just felt one of the finger spinners going for the new ball made it just a little bit more helpful. So we sacrificed the mystery part of it for someone who's hopefully going to get a bit more bite out of the pitch, or if someone is poking at it.”
“So could it be Washi as well? Those are deliberations from that end. That was the thinking with that - Kuldeep and Washy as well with the deliberation on whether Washy or Jaddu would take the new ball. Obviously, we wanted to see this from that end, and Shubman obviously decided to go with Jaddu in the start of second innings.”
Seam-bowling all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy’s limited involvement in the match so far, especially zero involvement with the ball, has been intriguing, especially with the pre-match press conferences stating how they have been looking to develop him via playing home Tests for tough overseas assignments.
More eyebrows were raised when Yashasvi Jaiswal’s part-time leg-spin was employed ahead of Nitish’s seam bowling for the final over of day three. Ten Doeschate stated that team strategy takes precedence over a player’s development for winning a Test match.
“I'm not surprised. So I guess, just to explain, we try to juggle grooming, preparing or developing guys alongside the aim of winning Test matches. The priority is to win the Test match. First, you're going to get a strategy call of who's the best bowler. If it allows, then you'll fit pieces in where you can by last time or get another batter to the wicket like we did."
"We changed the order, obviously, in the first innings, given the position we're in. But we're never going to sacrifice the strategy for the sake of development. So, obviously, the plan this afternoon was to get him to the top order, and Shubman obviously felt that he put the best bowler strategy first and hopefully Nitish gets to it.”
“In terms of tomorrow, obviously, four overs in this series so far for him and only one real chance to bat is not ideal. But strategy will always come first before the development of the plan.”
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