A lot of Test cricket is being played in Asia at the moment. Bangladesh lost to South Africa for the first time at home since 2008 on Thursday (October 24) while in Pune and Rawalpindi, India and Pakistan locked horns against New Zealand and England. Pitch was the talking point ahead of both the matches and as expected, at both venues, turner was dished out. But much to the disappointment of the home fans, they lost the toss and the visiting teams opted to bat.
However, in both Test matches, the spinners took control after a poor start and created history. For India, it was the duo of right-arm offspinners - Ravichandran Ashwin and Washington Sundar - who picked all 10 wickets with the latter registering his best first-class figures of 7/59. For the first time, in India's Test cricket history, offspinners took all the wickets in an innings. Overall, it is the fourth instance in Test cricket history and the first since 2008.
Meanwhile, in Rawalpindi, Sajid Khan and Noman Ali opened the bowling for Pakistan expecting the pitch to assist from ball one. It happened for the first time in Pakistan's Test cricket history and overall the fourth time in the longest format of the game. Sajid picked up six wickets and Noman scalped three while the third spinner Zahid Mehmood accounted for one. For the sixth time, Pakistan's spinners took all 10 wickets in the first innings of a Test.
As far as the visiting teams are concerned, both New Zealand and Pakistan posted similar scores in their first innings after winning the toss. However, their innings unfolded in contrasting ways. The Kiwis botched up a very good start to get bowled out to 259 after being in a healthy position of 197/3. They lost seven wickets for 62 runs in 20 overs with Sundar wrecking havoc.
On the other hand, England recovered from a precarious position of 118/6 thanks to Jamie Smith as they scored 273 runs before getting bowled out. Smith scored 89 runs even as he added 107 runs with Gus Atkinson for the seventh wickets. The total of 273 runs on a pitch turning from Day 1, for now, looks good enough given the fact that Pakistan lost three wickets of their own before stumps.
Having lost the toss, both India and Pakistan will be batting last in challenging conditions. Hence, the first innings effort from both teams will be massively crucial, more so for India as their 18 series winning streak is at stake.
