Off the field, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are contrasting personalities. Ashwin, scholarly to a fault, meticulous with his planning and willing to articulate his thoughts. Jadeja more reserved yet easy going. He attracts attention only when brandishing his bat like a sword on reaching landmarks.
With ball in hand, they are world cricket’s most successful spin-twins at present. They combine at home with Axar Patel -- he is fast becoming a Test regular in India -- to win matches, making it appear as just another day in the park. Together, the trio that shares 754 Test wickets did just that to Australia at Nagpur, accounting for 16 of the 20 wickets.
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Ashwin was happy to declare India’s bowling strengths as "unparalleled in these conditions".
India captain Rohit Sharma spoke glowingly. “It’s like captaining Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc in Australia. Pretty similar,” he told reporters on Saturday. “When you have the quality of Axar, Jadeja, and Ash, having played in India for so many years, playing on pitches like these, it’s always a blessing. The conditions are there yes, but you need to exploit them as well and conditions are for both the teams.”
{{/usCountry}}India captain Rohit Sharma spoke glowingly. “It’s like captaining Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc in Australia. Pretty similar,” he told reporters on Saturday. “When you have the quality of Axar, Jadeja, and Ash, having played in India for so many years, playing on pitches like these, it’s always a blessing. The conditions are there yes, but you need to exploit them as well and conditions are for both the teams.”
{{/usCountry}}In Nagpur, Ashwin went past 450 wickets. Jadeja is one short of 250. “Jadeja was on 249 wickets and he was telling me "mere ko ball de",” Sharma said, smiling. “Ashwin wanted (to complete) 5-for. I really don’t know too much about milestones but these guys know about it, so yeah, that’s the challenge of captaining them.
“Whichever end is more helpful, all the spinners obviously want to bowl from that end,” he said. “The pressure is always on me to find the right end for the right one. I try and play a little bit of match-up game. Ash has good match up against left-handers, not that he can’t get right-handers out. Jadeja and Axar have unbelievable match up against right-handers. I keep those things in mind while rotating them.”
Sharma spoke about learning to be patient as a captain by observing how the spinners succeeded during Virat Kohli’s tenure. In Nagpur, partnerships were few, but the most threatening one in the first innings between Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne was ultimately broken by Jadeja.
Asked to explain Ashwin’s success on the Nagpur pitch, Sharma pinned it down to the off-spinner’s experience and class. “Ash has played so much cricket in India. A lot of cricket and overs have gone into skills and being able to do what he is doing now, to be able to extract something out of the pitch, it is not easy,” he said.
“He can bowl that carrom ball, top-spinner, slider, guy has got everything. He likes to understand his game and take it to the next level. He looks an improved bowler every time he plays more. That is what good cricketers do, they try and up their game and reach that next level.”
The three Indian spinners are a batting force too in their own right for Indian conditions. Between them, they added 177 runs, as many as Australia managed in their first innings.