Yahoo Finance Old and new are intertwined at India's fortress in familiar tale for England
Inside Indian cricket’s newest stadium, a tale as old as Test cricket itself unfolded as India took control of the third Test, bowling England out cheaply once more. England’s fear of the turning track came to the fore and India’s spinners again showed it is the straight ball that can prove most dangerous when there is turn on offer.
The first sign of novelty appeared before a ball had been bowled when Ram Nath Kovind, the president of India, inaugurated the refurbished facility that has a capacity of 110,000, and revealed that the ground would be called the Narendra Modi Stadium.
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There cannot be too many instances of a stadium’s name being changed before it has even been used once, but these things happen in India.
But things felt quite old, at least twice during the course of the first day, when the lights at the stadium failed. They spent £80m redeveloping this facility but apparently can’t get the lights to stay on all evening.
In the seventh over of the innings India resorted to an old ploy and brought the spinner on. But it was the new man, Axar Patel, who was thrown the ball. The first one he sent down was too good for Jonny Bairstow, and India were on their way. Joe Root went back deep into his crease to a flighted ball from Ravichandran Ashwin, and was pinned lbw in front of the stumps.
From here on Axar did a near-perfect impression of Ravindra Jadeja. Tying down one end, refusing to hand the ball back to his captain, he wheeled away. Every now and again Axar would get one to grip, and the batsman would gawk, wide-eyed, wondering what further devils the pitch would have in store.
With the seed of doubt planted, Axar merely had to stick to the basics. After all, the left-arm orthodox spinner bowling long spells and using the seam to get the ball to grip the surface is a traditional ploy that captains have used down the ages. There was no rocket science, no mystery balls, no trying anything new.
But the pink ball added a new dimension. The extra coat of lacquer on the ball, applied to ensure it retained shine and colour for longer, meant that each time the ball landed on the leather, it skidded through, going on with the arm rather than turning. What was new to England’s batsmen was that Axar was bowling the arm ball without even trying.
In the space of two Test matches, Axar has gone from being a Twenty20 specialist to a bowler with a Test five-for and six-for in the bag. If this was new to him, it did not show in the manner in which he handled himself.
And perhaps that is because Axar is an old hand at handling adversity. Only two years ago, Axar’s father was involved in a road accident in Nadiad, a town some 60 kilometres from Ahmedabad. A late-night jaunt for a cup of tea with friends became nearly fatal, and Rajeshbhai required four months of hospital treatment and expert medical care to survive. Needless to say, through it all, Axar put all his resources into getting his father back on his feet.
Young Axar may have earned his international stripes, and Indian Premier League riches, but that has not changed him quite as much as you might expect. He still retains his old room in the family home, taking refuge in video games when not on cricket’s global treadmill.
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England made the old mistake of carrying their baggage from the Chennai pitch out to the middle in Ahmedabad, and with the cobwebs of the mind still far from blown away, did not allow for anything new to happen to them. By the close of play India were right on top, with Rohit Sharma batting, as usual, as though on a different surface.
It was Emerson who said that “old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands”. In Ahmedabad, old and new were deeply intertwined, and the only thing that unravelled was England.
