Axar Patel would have happy memories from the last time he played against England at home. After all, he picked up 27 wickets at a breathtaking average of 10.59 in just three matches and he refreshed some of those memories with an absolute peach of delivery to dismiss Jonny Bairstow on the opening day of the 1st India vs England Test today at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad.
Bairstow was looking good during his breezy knock of 37 when Patel pitched one on the leg stump from over the wicket. Bairstow, with the fourth stump guard to negate the possibility of LBW, prodded just a bit hoping the ball will drift down further with the angle, but the delivery spun leaving Bairstow’s bat and clipped the top of off stump. It was a classical left-arm spinner’s dismissal and Patel’s elation was there for all to see.
“I was thinking of bowling wicket-to-wicket line as much as possible because Bairstow had the fourth stump guard to avoid the LBW,” Patel said of the dismissal during the post-day presser, adding, “So we were hoping that one delivery turns the other away from the end I was bowling because some odd balls were turning some weren’t and this one turned and you could see that I enjoyed that wicket a lot with my celebrations.”
While the build up talk was about how the pitch will behave, for the first day the it actually played well – a fact conceded by Patel and evident from Yashasvi Jaiswal’s batting effort.
“They made 246 and we knew the wicket is good and it is only the odd ball that is spinning, and importantly this wicket is slow, so it is easier to adjust to the spin. I don’t think the ball was spinning that much, it was normal spin as I said, the ball is not skidding on after pitching. Yes, it is a challenging wicket, but if you bat well, you will get runs and if you bowl well you will get wickets.” said Patel, who finished with 2/33 from his 13 overs.
Talking about England’s batting approach, Patel said that the way they were batting, India were always in with a chance to take wickets. “England were playing attacking cricket, but for me I was focused on my bowling – I was thinking I will focus on my line and length, and adjust according to how the pitch is playing and that is what I did during my spell
“They were hitting a lot of sweeps and reverse sweeps, so with the captain the discussion was where to place the fielders. If you had noticed, we had the point fielder back specifically for the reverse sweeps. If they play these shots off good deliveries, we cannot do much, but because they were going for their shots we knew we had the chance to take wickets,” he added.
