Ranchi, Feb 26 (IANS) India’s left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav revealed that veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s advice to bowl a little bit quicker, as well as mixing variations with his run-up worked well for him to pick four wickets in bowling out England for 145 in their second innings.
England had a first-innings lead of 46, but Ashwin wreaked havoc with the new ball to pick his 35th five-wicket haul in Tests via a splendid 5-51. He was ably supported by Kuldeep taking a brilliant 4-22. “Ashwin told me to bowl a little bit quicker because the wicket is so slow. I tried that and tried my variations, and mixed up my run-up.
“The wicket was quite slow and the odd one keeping low so I thought that bowling finger spin worked to begin with. But I’m happy with how I bowled, in the end,” said Kuldeep in a chat with broadcasters ahead of day four’s play.
Kuldeep was resolute with the bat too, making 28 off 131 balls while sharing a crucial 76-run stand for the eighth wicket with Dhruv Jurel, who made a terrific 90, to help the hosts’ fight back in the match by narrowing the deficit to 46.
“Dhruv Jurel is very composed, he was very calm out there. I have played a lot of cricket with him so we were just thinking about the next ball, not the runs because we were still quite far behind. We just tried to bat for as long as we can yesterday morning,” added Kuldeep.
England opener Zak Crawley felt the pitch should do enough for England to seal an unlikely win. “It’s a bit warmer today so hopefully the cracks open up, it turns a bit more and only gets harder. We are still in the game.”
“We’re well up for it. We’re going for it. We’ve got an unbelievable opportunity but everyone’s pretty relaxed, we know the pitch will do enough for us so we want to win and we’ll do all we can.”
On Sunday, in dismissing India for 307 in first innings, Bashir took 5-119, his first-five wicket haul in first-class cricket, which left Crawley impressed. “He’s been unbelievable. He’s impressed a lot with his attitude, even before he played, he doesn’t seem to fazed and it’s like he’s been around for 10 years.”
–IANS
nr/bc
