Subhayan Chakraborty at Edgbaston
It was a rollercoaster of a Day 3 at Edgbaston as England folded for 407 runs with Mohammed Siraj bagging a six-for and Akash Deep picking up four. While Siraj and Akash shared the wickets between them, Prasidh Krishna and the spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar went wicketless on a placid track in Birmingham. On what has been a flat and dry surface at Edgbaston, the wicket offered little for the bowlers, especially the slow ones. For England, Shoaib Bashir did get slight purchase from the pitch, ending up with three wickets from his 45 overs while conceding 167 at an economy rate of 3.7. Jadeja and Sundar went for 143 runs in 31 combined overs.
The concering part was that neither Jadeja nor Sundar troubled any of the English batters, including centurions Harry Brook and Jamie Smith. Notably, Jadeja only managed one wicket in the Headingley Test as well, that of Ben Stokes on Day 5. Bashir had kept it tight on Day 1 and 2 while varying his pace. He offered flight and sometimes bowled with guile, using angles and the crease to mix it up against the Indian batters.
Bashir had varied his pace from as low as 75 kph to as high as 95 kph, but when it came to Jadeja and Washington, the speedometer was mostly above 90 kph. With the pitch offering little or no turn, Jadeja bowled flatter trajectories while Sundar failed to find a consistent length. In Jadeja’s 17 overs, the experienced left-armer bowled only two maidens and conceded 70 runs at an economy of 4.1. Sundar leaked 73 runs at an economy of 5.2 runs in 14 overs.
While Siraj and Akash did the job in the first innings, sharing the 10 wickets, the onus will be on Jadeja and Sundar to get their act together on the final day after the Indian batters complete their job on Day 4.