Former England captain Kevin Pietersen expressed his concerns regarding England’s spin department after Yashasvi Jaiswal’s unbeaten 76-run knock on Day 1 helped India take control of the first Test against England in Hyderabad.
The England cricket team, which had come to India with high hopes and a strategy famously dubbed ‘Bazball’, found themselves on the back foot as Jaiswal unleashed an onslaught against their spin attack, particularly targeting the inexperienced Tom Hartley. Jaiswal’s aggressive approach saw him hitting two sixes off Hartley’s first over, contributing to the spinner conceding 63 runs in just 8 overs.
Despite Jack Leach’s commendable effort, which resulted in the only wicket of the day for England, India closed the day strongly at 119 for 1, only 127 runs behind England’s total. With the pitch still looking good for batting, India’s position seemed dominant, and the prospect of building a substantial lead on Day 2 was very much on the cards. England, on the other hand, faced the challenge of needing to exhibit exceptional discipline with their bowling to claw their way back into contention.
Reflecting on England’s victorious 2012 tour of India, Pietersen recalled the impact of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, who managed to outperform India’s spinners. However, the former batter observed that the current English spinners could not extract sufficient turn from the pitch, a deficiency highlighted by Yashasvi Jaiswal’s aggressive batting.
My big concern is England’s spinners. I said it before the series. When we won here in 2012, we had Swann and Panesar, who outbowled Ashwin, Harbhajan and Pragyan Ojha. Unfortunately, from what I have seen here today, I can’t see these three spinners outbowling Indian spinners. I just didn’t see the ball spin enough. A couple of balls, they got to spin,” Kevin Pietersen said while speaking on Sports18.
The former England skipper noted that the lack of turn was evident when compared to the Indian spinners, who managed to get the ball to bounce and turn, creating more challenging conditions for the English batsmen.
“But England spinners just never got the border spin. Yes, they weren’t allowed to spin it because Yashasvi Jaiswal was hitting it. But also you only need one ball to spin or two balls to spin. They just couldn’t get into spin. You contrast that with India. First of all, we thought, Oh, here we go. Next ball. Then we get the ball to bounce. Then we get the ball to spin. Then another one bounces. We just didn’t see that with the England spinners,” Pietersen added.
