It almost felt like a skullduggery, R Ashwin going wicketless in a Test innings at home! Or else how would you explain a hapless-looking Ashwin against the likes of Will Young, Daryl Mitchell and Glenn Phillips? The naysayers had almost called it a passing of the baton with Washington Sundar doing the heavy lifting. However, you can’t beat class and quality. Just when India needed their experienced spinners to put their hand up, Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja came up with some beautiful deliveries and tactics to bamboozle the Kiwis to hand India an advantage going into the third day of the Mumbai Test.
It was a Day 2 wicket tailor-made for a batting line-up to be galloped by Ashwin and Jadeja themselves. You’d imagine that Ashwin and Jadeja would be licking their lips after the two innings were done on that track and that first wicket of the match of Rachin Ravindra meant so much to senior offie. He was overjoyed and relieved at the same time. However, it was Akash Deep, who started the procession by cleaning up the New Zealand skipper Tom Latham in the very first over.
Shortly Washington Sundar, the only bright spot for India in the last couple of Tests, sprung to the action with the big wicket of Devon Conway and the hosts were up and running. The ball to Ravindra from Ashwin was almost like a reminder, ‘I’m still here’. India don’t play a home Test for almost a year now and this might be the last time for some time that one gets to see Ashwin showing his mastery like that.