India vs Windies | Takeaways: Jason Holder’s strong presence and Ravindra Jadeja’s relentlessness

India vs Windies | Takeaways: Jason Holder’s strong presence and Ravindra Jadeja’s relentlessness

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India secured a 10-wicket victory against the Windies to secure a 2-0 series win to extend their unbeaten run against the Windies to 21 matches. On a day when Windies squandered the advantage to India, Jason Holder’s strong talismanic presence made sure that Windies have a statesman in the team.

Jason Holder’s talismanic presence in Windies team

If you look at both the pitches used in the series so far, then there was a lot of difference and two completely contrasting types of bowlers ruled the roost. In Rajkot, it was spinners all the way while pacers were the primary wreckers in chief in Hyderabad. In this Test, Windies’ seamers not only bowled the fastest balls but also their average speeds were higher. 

However, with the new ball, Jason Holder brought the magic. Given the fact that Holder is an immensely attacking bowler, he gets away despite not having the ability to extract a lot of lateral movement. To accommodate for some sort of swing that the morning session today had on offer, he had to send the ball off on a very wide line for an in-swinger, or an extremely straight line for an outswinger, which for sure, is not that easy to understand for lower-order batsmen. Ajinkya Rahane fell prey to him. He could have gone the other way around and bowled slower balls on the rough patch of the Uppal surface and frightened the Indians. However, the Windies skipper knew that it was a tactic that might prove way too defensive one to go against a team like India as the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are not that weak a batsman to come under pressure. 

For long, Windies have been lacking an Ashwin-like figure in the team and while Kemar Roach is a good pacer in his own right, Holder brings that brain to the team, which is invaluable. 

Ravindra Jadeja - the master of relentlessness

Ravindra Jadeja doesn’t use the crease as much against right-handers so as not to disturb the decorum of his natural angle. He bowls from the corner of the crease but considering the fact Hyderabad had quite a few rough patches from the pavilion end, Jadeja maintained straighter lines and was able to turn some and bring some back in without any visible change in his action or wrist position. The balls that turn landed partly on the seam over the rough patches and while the ones that go straight land on the leather. So, it is not difficult to assume that even he, like other Windies spinners, wasn't certain about the ones that will turn.

However, there is a thing about relentlessness and constantly bowling at the same pace accurately was hugely responsible to strangulate the Windies cricketers, especially Shai Hope. When he kept on doing that, Ashwin instantly came into bowl those flighted deliveries and got the balls to move off the rough. It created a dilemma for the visitors and that ended with Hope opening the face of the bat without covering the turn. If the Barbadian would have stopped using the pads and not offer a shot to the ball when Jadeja was much closer to the stumps, you could have negotiated it. But then again, what is the fun without Jadeja’s deception?

Are Windies actually as good as they have been touted in the recent past?

When it comes to rearguard action, Windies have showcased many of their own. It was in August 2016 when Roston Chase scored a match-saving, unbeaten 137 runs and was involved in century stands for the sixth and the seventh wickets to ensure a hard-fought draw against India. Virat Kohli’s negative tactics were much debated then, but it was a typical Test match batting display. Since then, Chase has been involved in three of the subsequent six century stands for the sixth wicket or below, showcasing why he is the mainstay of the middle-order batting line-up. Shane Dowrich, Jason Holder and Devendra Bishoo have been strong supports to Chase as the four of them having contributed nearly 35 percent of the runs Windies have scored since January 2016. Sporadic success followed, but the real big challenge was going to be India tour, in which they failed miserably.

Yes, the first day was somehow the reflection of what they have been doing lately. Despite some promising starts, Windies failed to convert those scores to big ones and were yet again staring down the barrel. But, a recovery was staged and the pioneer of that effort was Roston Chase who struck an unbeaten 98. However, as the ball started to turn a bit, Windies squandered the advantage to India and their second innings was nowhere close to what they had done in the first innings assignment. Have they improved? Maybe. But, have they improved enough to put up a good performance against teams beyond Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, and Sri Lanka? Well, from the look of it, it doesn’t seem to be the case.

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