India’s meek surrender to New Zealand in the three-Test series ensured that the visitors made history by vanquishing the hosts. The Black Caps sweeping the series has also affected India’s chances of making it to the final of the World Test Championship (WTC). The shock wave caused by the downfall of a side that was considered to be almost invincible at home was felt across the entire cricketing world. The debacle in the first Test at Bengaluru could be attributed to the collapse in the first innings on account of batting on a sticky wicket. However, no such excuses could be offered for the failures at Pune and Mumbai, where underprepared pitches were made to help the Indian spin bowlers to run through the opposing batting line-up.
Why did the Indian spin bowling duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja fail to deliver the goods for the side, easpecially at Pune? Ashwin is undoubtedly one of the leading spin bowlers in contemporary cricket, with 536 wickets in Test matches to his credit while Jadeja is the fifth highest wicket-taker for India in Test cricket. Further, what sets them apart from the other bowlers of their type is their remarkable ability to win matches in home conditions. Ashwin has a haul of 383 wickets in matches played in India, which includes 29 five- wicket hauls, besides which he has taken 10 wickets in a game on six occasions. Jadeja, on the other hand, has 221 wickets from matches at home. He has picked up five wickets in an innings on 13 occasions and 10 wickets in a game thrice. They have been acknowledged as match-winners at home and have spun their side to facile victories on numerous occasions in the past decade. The fact that India had not lost a Test series at home since 2012 is as much a tribute to their brilliance as it is to the contributions of others.
It is this set of past performances at home that makes the lack of returns from this pair at Pune all the more surprising and disappointing. The pitch supported spin bowlers to such an extent that even Mitchell Santner, who went to the Test with just 54 wickets in his bag, could add 13 more to his kitty at Pune. Washington Sundar, an off-spinner who is a relative greenhorn when compared to Ashwin and Jadeja, too had an excellent game, returning match figures of 11/115. The Kiwis are not used to batting on such tracks and none of their batsmen can claim credit to being experts at tackling high quality spin bowling. In normal course, Ashiwn and Jadeja would have licked their fingers in anticipation and then proceeded to run through the side; instead they finished with match hauls of 5/161 and 3/125 respectively.
The manner in which the Kiwis tackled Ashwin and Jadeja at Bengaluru and Pune brought back memories on a home series loss suffered by India close to 50 years ago. England, under Tony Greig, toured India in 1976-77 for a five-Test series and took on Bishan Singh Bedi-led home side. India were expected to win the series and most pundits predicted that the spin trio of Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (Chandra) and Erapalli Prasanna would bowl India to a win over the visitors. However, the result came as a shock as the hosts were made to bit the dust in the first three Tests and lost the series 1-3.
Most observers mention the away series to Pakistan in 1978 as the one that proved to be the death knell of the famed India spin trio. It is true that Pakistan batsmen led by Zaheer Abbas decimated the Indian spin bowlers during this series. Prasanna was dropped from the playing eleven after the second Test and did not play international cricket again. Bedi and Chandra pulled along for some more time after this tour but were a pale shadow of their former selves and soon lost their places in the national side. But a closer observation will show us that while the tour of Pakistan proved to the proverbial last straw, the signs of this trio losing their magic was evident right from the series against England in 1976-77.
Many may express surprise over this conclusion as Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna were among the wickets in this series. Bedi picked up 25 wickets in the five Tests, while Chandra had a haul of 19. Prasanna, who played only in four Tests had 18 victims to show for his efforts. Bedi and Chandra both dismissed five batsmen or more in an innings on two occasions. Thus, the scoreboard and statistics would show that the trio had a good outing with a haul of 62 wickets during this series.
However, statistics and figures do not reveal the fact that cricketers like Roger Tolchard, Mike Brearley and John Lever, who did not have any pretensions of being exceptional players of spin bowling, managed to score half-centuries against the famed Indian spin trio. One can understand batsmen of the caliber of Greig, Dennis Amiss, Keith Fletcher and even Alan Knott, all reputed to be an excellent players of spin bowling, scoring heavily during this series, but not other willow-wielders and the tailenders. Further, the ability of Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna to run through batting line-ups in the series against England in 1972-73 and the West Indies in 1974-75 was noticeably absent. This was the first indication that though the trio was still very good with the ball, they had lost extra nip and turn that made them exceptional performers.
The blame for this defeat was placed squarely on the Indian batsmen, who had fared poorly in this series. Both Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath, the two pillars of Indian batting during the 1970s, had poor outings with the willow, with the former scoring just one century and two fifties while the latter had only one half-century to his credit. None of the other batsmen could rise to the occasion and India crossed the 200-run mark only once in the first three Tests. Thus, there was no denying the fact that there was a colossal batting failure, which shifted the attention from the very ordinary show put in by the spinners.
The next series that India played was against Australia Down Under in 1977-78. The Aussies were weakened by the mass desertion of their top players to play in the Kerry Packer sponsored World Series Cricket and they had to recall Bob Simpson, who had retired from international cricket almost a decade ago, to lead the side. India fielded a full strength side as none of our players had caught the attention of Packer and his scouts. But they still lost this series 2-3, though this time the Indian batsmen performed capably and put up decent totals on the board. The spin trio again had huge pickings on the field - Bedi had a haul of 31 wickets and Chandra was close behind with 28, while Prasanna had a modest return of six scalps. This was a series where the hosts should not have won even one Test as none of their batsmen, with the possible exception of Simpson, had hardly any experience of playing top quality spin bowling. However, our spin trio was not able to deliver the goods and allowed the inexperienced Aussie batsmen to gain the upper hand, so much so that in the second Test Antony Mann, a leg-spin bowler who came in as night watchman, merrily waltzed his way to a century.
With the benefit of hindsight, one can state that the national selection committee should have identified the fall in performance levels of the spin trio and started looking for capable replacements after the series against England. Had we done so, we could not only have blooded new talent during the tour of Australia in 1977-78, but even turned the results around. The aura surrounding these great bowlers may have also been a reason behind the reluctance of selectors to think about replacing them. But the sad fact remains that they missed out on reading these signals accurately at the appropriate time.
The downturn in the wicket-taking abilities of Ashwin and Jadeja indicate that time has come for grooming youngsters who can take over the mantle from them. The duo may continue to pick up wickets in Test matches for some more time, but the decline in their abilities as match-winners, which has become evident, is an irreversible process. The success of Sundar at Pune shows that he is ready to take on more onerous responsibilities in the international arena. It is within the mandate of the selectors to find an effective left-arm spin bowling replacement for Jadeja as well, so that the succession process is smooth.
Ashwin and Jadeja are top class performers who served the cause of India cricket with commitment and diligence over the past decade. They supported each other and combined their skills with deadly impact on the batsmen facing them. However, the long spells have taken their toll on their shoulders and the time has come to look beyond them to find replacements who can carry the torch forward. The selectors should learn from the lessons of the decline of the trio of Bedi, Chandra and Prasanna and ensure that this process is initiated without any delay.
(The author is a former international cricket umpire and a retired bureaucrat)