5th Test: Kuldeep Yadav magic spooks England in Dharamshala

Spinner's fifer snuffs life out of Stokes and Co; Rohit, Jaiswal slam fifties as India race to 135-1
DHARAMSHALA

: The unravelling of the 'Bazball' ethos continues on Indian soil. On Thursday,

England

were undone as much by the wristy genius of

Kuldeep Yadav

as their own frazzled minds. The restrictive fields set by

Rohit Sharma

added to England's dilemma.

What else explains the highly-strung Ollie Pope's maddening dance down the track to a flat, wide googly near the stroke of lunch? Or Johnny Bairstow's maverick cameo when there was an innings to be rebuilt? Or the edgy Ben Duckett's needless go at Kuldeep in his first over? That too after the openers had, by the skin of their teeth, survived a torrid and fascinating morning session of pace bowling from the luckless

Jasprit Bumrah

and Mohammed Siraj.

The duo generated appreciable seam movement and a prodigious 2.4 degrees of swing, the most in this series, to set the stage for the spinners, who took all the wickets to fall. In going from 100/1 to 175/5 to 218 all out, including a period in which they lost five wickets for eight runs in the space of 37 deliveries in the middle session, England made the Day One pitch look like a minefield. Now, opportunity squandered, they have been served another lesson in building a Test innings in these conditions.

To be fair, the pitch did a bit more than expected but the extravagant approach of most England batters didn't help, especially against these masters of spin bowling. Any team would have struggled on the day against Kuldeep (5/72 from 15 overs), but the profligate approach added to the problem. It was as if every England batter believed that a ball with his name would be up next and played accordingly.

Only

Zak Crawley

, who hung in after being tied down early on to score 79 off 108 balls, looked like going on for a big one. Root, bolstered by a patient century in the previous Test in Ranchi, too appeared to be bucking the trend until he was set up by the wily

Ravindra Jadeja

with one that spun away and took the outside edge, planting the seed of doubt. The next one, a slider, caught Root plumb in front.
Ben Stokes

' severe dry run with the bat, meanwhile, continued to mirror his team's middle order frailties. The England captain has shown a tendency to sit deep in his crease, and another Kuldeep googly did the rest. In yet another unfathomable move, Bairstow, Root and Stokes all wasted England's reviews. Ashwin dismantled the tail, picking up a four-wicket haul in his landmark 100th Test.

Kuldeep, though, was the story of the day. He showed just why he is rated as the most improved spinner in world cricket, putting extra revs on the ball, getting some bite and zip off the wicket, tossing it up, varying his pace, generating impressive turn and tying the England batters up in knots. It looked a different surface when Rohit Sharma and

Yashasvi Jaiswal

calmly went about their business after the England innings had been dismantled in 57.4 overs.
Both scored brisk yet composed half-centuries as India ended the day comfortably ahead at 135/1, going at 4.5 per over to show just how good the pitch was for batting. Jaiswal (57 off 58; 5x4, 3x6) continued to break new ground, becoming the second-fastest Indian to 1000 Test runs and the second after Sunil Gavaskar to score over 700 runs in a series of five or more Tests.

Jaiswal's youthful impetuosity eventually cost him his wicket, and it is now up to Rohit (batting on 52) and Shubman Gill to squeeze out the remaining life out of this contest, especially with the inexperience showing in England's spin ranks.
Unless the England batters can pull themselves up by the bootstraps in the second innings, 'Bazball' appears in risk of being labelled a rather eccentric approach - a non-starter, even - in these conditions.