A need for a left-arm spinner to pounce at England's vulnerability against the variety was highlighted even before the visitors had landed in Chennai after a successful campaign in Sri Lanka. Despite the 2-0 clean sweep on Asian soil, England showed signs of discomfort against Lasith Embuldeniya, a slow left-arm orthodox. With Ravindra Jadeja on the sidelines with an injury, Axar Patel, who earned his maiden Indian Test call-up, emerged as a popular choice to take upon the responsibility.
Embuldeniya picked 15 wickets in the two-Test series against England, averaging 27.66. 12 of those dismissals were England's top 6 from the batting lineup. The opening pair of Zak Crawley and Dom Sibley fared the worst among the top-6, having fallen victim seven times between themselves with the pair averaging just 6.57. Meanwhile, Daniel Lawrence fell victim to the bowler twice, managing 35 runs in 89 balls.
Overall, Sibley, Crawley, Lawrence and Rory Burns combine to average only 18.69 against the variety in their Test career with Crawley's average and dismissal rate of 10.2 and 23.75 respectively being the worst among the four. Only Joe Root had a better statistic against left-arm spinners, averaging 69.5 with a dismissal rate of 130.42.
However, Axar was ruled out of the opener with an injury, leaving the management to pull off the strategy with stand-by option Shahbaz Nadeem, who failed to execute, conceding 233 runs for just four wickets as England pulled off a sensational win. He averaged 48 against England's top 7 in the game.
Axar was cleared for selection for the second Test and the management immediately added him to the XI in place of Washington Sundar while Nadeem was replaced by Kuldeep Yadav. And the left-armer, who has a first-class experience of 39 matches where he picked 134 wickets at 27.38, did not just live up to plans, he even returned with a five-wicket haul in the second innings on his debut including the two dismissals of Root.
Much like Jadeja, Axar was quicker through the air, but more accurate with his line and length. However, it is his ability to bowl straighter ones, even with the arm-ball ball, was the factor that stood out. He dished out only a couple in the first innings, but used it quite a bit in the second, with his dismissal of Sibley epitomising its impact. It was a fuller ball that Axar had gotten to skid straight, hitting the pads plumb in line with the middle. Sibley misread the length and looked to play it around. Stone suffered a similar fate at the fag end of the final innings.
Axar returned with figures of 7 for 100 which included a second-innings five-for that added him to an elusive list alongside Ravichandran Ashwin. Against the top-7, he averaged only 23.25 with four dismissals.
Left mighty impressed with his show in Chennai, former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar pointed out three factors that helped Axar in his successful maiden Test. Talking to ESPNCricinfo, he said, "Three things that worked for him: he is very accurate, which always helps on rank turners in India; the other thing is his speed, he is comfortably able to be accurate at the speed of 90 to 100 kph which is perfect on pitched we have here; the third things, which is a real bonus, is the height at which he releases the ball.
“Also, I am not sure whether – like Jadeja – in his bowling which ball is going to turn against the angle and which one will go with the angle. His three or four dismissals in the second innings were to straight balls. So, that is another plus that Axar Patel has – the ability to ball quick straight balls on a rank turner,” Manjrekar further added.
With the revelation of Axar, while it adds to India's bowling depth and ability to look beyond the famed pair of Ashwin and Jadeja, at present, it definitely creates a happy headache in opting for a spin combination irrespective of the format.
