While Ashwin and Jadeja dominated, the others too chipped in at crucial moments to seal a memorable win Test wins aren’t necessarily achieved with acts of flourishes. Regular journeymen such as M
Vijay and
Wriddhiman Saha are not for cover pages. But their contribution
goes beyond numbers. They are the understated, unsung performers complementing the dynamites in the eleven, ever making the small differences.
R Ashwin and
Ravindra Jadeja scream out of the
Green Park scoresheet, but India had the minor characters doing their two bits too, willing to be the less-grand
Edmund in King Lear, the support cast in the larger design of a Test match. If India’s eventual margin of win, 197 runs, seems emphatic it’s because the little moments added up to something of a bonfire.
In sessions when the momentum seesawed, somebody played a cameo (Jadeja in the first innings) or pitched in with quick two wickets (
Mohammad Shami in the second). R Ashwin’s first-innings 40 when India were 261 for six was as central to the home team taking the lead in this series as his match-haul of 10 wickets.
Saha’s contribution is more than that one catch he had taken in the entire Test. Mind you, he didn’t even score a run. But his glove-work was top-drawer when the surface was at its absolute worst. The ball would snuggle in his gloves like cloth. So strong was India’s stranglehold in
New Zealand’s second innings that they didn’t concede a bye.
India won the Test because it prevailed in the key sessions, illustrated no better by the 41-run last-wicket stand between Jadeja and
Umesh Yadav that allowed India to jump over 300 in the first innings.
KL Rahul missed out on a fifty, but it was his second innings 38 that set the pace. Invariably, having an additional slip became a luxury for the visitors trailing by 56, which was more like 150 on this surface. Rahul’s assault blunted New
Zealand’s new-ball sting, leaving
Mitchell Santner & Co too much to do. If
Trent Boult is made to look pedestrian, then somebody has done a good job.
India effectively killed the contest in the three hours on the penultimate day when Jadeja and
Rohit Sharma were engaged in a fiery 100-run stand that allowed India to declare an hour earlier than they would have otherwise planned. The late charge meant India could throw a kitchen sink of 37 overs at the visitors.
Virat Kohli said, “Maybe we would have otherwise declared with our tail-enders batting an hour after tea. But that (Rohit-Jadeja partnership) gave us the whole session yesterday and we got four wickets. So that makes quite a bit of difference.”
You’d probably not use the word ‘handy’ for Ashwin considering he was expected to run through the
Kiwi line-up anyway. But India weren’t expected to have Ashwin at his absolute best owing to the corn on his bowling finger. It’s a tribute to his craft that he could still persuade his spinning finger into giving those hard revs.
Kohli couldn’t thank him enough: “The rankings, I’m not a big fan of, they suggest that Ashwin is the best at the moment. There’s no doubt that he’s been bowling wonderfully well for the last couple of years. He works very hard on his game. He’s a very keen thinker of the game. He likes to talk cricket. He understands the game very well. He understands the situation and plays accordingly.”
When the finger strained, Ashwin slipped in the carom ball. Of course he was aided in part by the surface. The ball that dislodged the well-set Mitchell
Santner — taking off to hit the shoulder of his bat — brought a wry smile to the batsman. Welcome to Indian wickets.
SCOREBOARD India 1st innings 318
New Zealand 1st innings 262
India 2nd innings 377/5 decl
New Zealand 2nd innings (overnight 93/4) L
Ronchi c Ashwin b Jadeja80
M Santner c
Sharma b Ashwin71
BJ Watling lbw b Shami18
M
Craig b Shami1
I
Sodhi b Ashwin17
T
Boult (not out)2
N
Wagner lbw b Ashwin0
Extras (lb-2, nb-1)3
Total (all out; 87.3 overs)236 Fall of wickets: 5-158 (Ronchi), 6-194 (Watling), 7-196 (Craig), 8-223 (Santner), 9-236 (Sodhi), 10-236 (Wagner)
Bowling:
Shami 8-2-18-2, Ashwin 35.3-5-132-6, Jadeja 34-17-58-1, Yadav 8-1-23-0, Vijay 2-0-3-0.
