Glenn McGrath and Allan Border have joined a chorus of former cricketers and analysts in saying that India may have made a mistake by going into the second Test without a specialist spinner in their squad. Ravichandran Ashwin, who took six wickets in the first Test and played a big role in India’s historic win, is injured and India decided to replace him with pacer Umesh Yadav.
However, Australian opening pair Aaron Finch and Marcus Harris negated the pacers and went on to put an opening stand of 112. While there was a considerable green cover on the pitch, the first session showed that it was not as vicious as Virat Kohli expected judging by his bullish response to the question during the pre-match press conference. “They have got caught up in the hype and felt this pitch was going to do everything, bounce, pace, carry, seam,” Glenn McGrath.
Border said that having variety in the attack is always good and India look one-dimensional in this Test. “I do think it’s good to have that variety in attack, and the India pace bowling they were tremendous in Adelaide. They got through the heat and the conditions of all five days, they kept running in so I don’t think they need another one,” Border said. “A spinner would have been ideal later on in the game in particular. One of Australia’s weaknesses in the past few years has been left-arm spin.”
Earlier, former England captain Michael Vaughan had said that he would have played Ravindra Jadeja in the playing eleven. “Jadeja’s a wonderful cricketer as well. He’s someone that I’d want in the team. He bats well, he’s an incredible fielder, he will create something in the field and with his bowling he’s just going to keep bowling,” Vaughan said. “You look at your three quicks and Ravi Jadeja, as a captain I look at it and you think you’ve got an end tied up against left and right-hand, and if it does start to spin like it did in a Shield match a few weeks ago, he’ll come into his own.”
