India completely shifted the momentum with an impressive all-round performance on Day 3 of the fourth Test match against England on Sunday. Dhruv Jurel's maiden Test fifty gave India a fighting chance in the first innings and then Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav dominated Ranchi's cracked-up surface to give India control of the game.
Ashwin proved his brilliance once again after below-par performances in this series by taking his 35th five-wicket haul in a Test innings. The veteran opened the bowling for India as Rohit started with a complete spin attack to England's second innings.
Bowling with a new ball proved no challenge for Ashwin who bagged three early wickets, including Joe Root's, to put India in the driving seat. Ashwin then returned to put England out of misery with two more wickets to make it a five-fer.
Ranchi's surface surprisingly produced a very low bounce from Day 2 and it deteriorated further on Sunday, proving hard for batters to read the condition. When asked about his thoughts on bowling with a new ball, Ashwin revealed how he made a mental switch to make it work.
"So actually I had to go back and rewire the way I had to think about the game," Ashwin said after Day 3's play. "I am someone who comes over the top, comes down on the ball. I like the ball to drop on the pitch. Somehow when I come to the eastern part of the country, I find that there is not enough bite out of the surface. The bounce is literally almost near the shin height, if I can say that. So I had to really go a lot of side spin. I had to hammer into the pitch for the first part of the spell. And later from the other side, I felt like there was a little bit more purchase. I had to literally rewire and it was a mental switch I had to make."
