Ajaz Patel's feat needs to be celebrated, it is a clear reflection of Team India’s inability to play spin. It was unthinkable, until now, that an Indian team will ever gift all its wickets to a spinner.
For a moment, it was tempting to rename this piece from Left-Arm Over to Left-Arm Round the wicket. After all, that is so much in vogue these days, with Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and one other Patel, who now is the most famous Patel in world cricket.
It was sheer destiny for Ajaz Patel, the boy who grew up in Mumbai, to come back to the Wankhede after all these years and do what only Jim Laker and Anil Kumble could, in 300 years of documented game history. Ajaz was gazing at the Wankhede Honours board before the Test began to update himself about this iconic venue; and now people will forever flock just to see his name etched on that board to get a sense of what just happened in this second Test.
Ten wickets in an innings is a status which Ajaz would, and truly should, flaunt proudly but it is in true sense a reflection of Team India’s rock bottom standards of batting against spin. It is unfathomable that an Indian team would give away all their wickets to a spinner. On Day 1 and 2 of a Test match!
It doesn’t matter how the opposition fared, or that they collapsed on the same surface, after all we are the one with magic tricks in our bag and know how to score on those dusty tracks. Team India’s technique against spin has been a ticking bomb and the team has helped many a flagging careers with their ineptness.
Purists will swiftly call upon excess of white-ball cricket and casual techniques but the mess is deep-rooted. Indian domestic cricket, almost a decade ago made a conscious call, to make green pitches for our fist-class structure as an antidote to Indian collapses abroad. Green pitches also help unearthing fresh fast-bowling talent while making Ranji Trophy more result -oriented in their otherwise mundane first innings lead system. But the repercussions are to be seen now, where we are still collapsing to quality fast and swing bowling but at the same time become weak against spin as well.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s struggles against spin is well known even in white-ball cricket while Pujara and Rahane haven’t quite shown the eagerness to come down the wicket and play with the turn. In a bid to learn to play fast bowling on green pitches, we have now forgotten to play spinners on our home tracks.
Another important aspect is the absence of our international players from our domestic cricket. Our internal structure is now mere employment exchange for those who can’t get an IPL deal and the quality is abysmal. Due to Covid, there are players in excess in the Indian team, then there are separate net bowlers, an India A programme and a few who skip games because of IPL cushion. It finally leaves us with a mammoth exercise of hosting games that no one cares to watch, and performances that mostly doesn’t count.
For a Rahane and Pujara to get back into a season of domestic cricket is almost unthinkable now unless they are dropped, and workload management and fatigue are the new buzzword.
It is time for Indian cricket to get back to basics, force Team India players to compulsorily play domestic cricket, add value to their performances and get back to their strengths of playing well on sub-continental pitches.
It wasn’t merely coincidental that Ajaz did the unthinkable exactly when the Board mandarins met for brainstorming. It is time for BCCI to go back to basics, press the reset button. Else it will be a classic case of Jack of all trades, master of none.