India wicketkeeper Parthiv almost had to eat his words after England came back into the match in the second session of Day Three when they picked up four wickets, giving away just 45 runs in 30 overs on Saturday. Two of those wickets - Patel himself and R Ashwin — were gobbled up by their part-timer Joe Root
England's part-time spinner Joe Root celebrates the wicket of R Ashwin on Saturday. Pic/PTI
England's part-time spinner Joe Root celebrates the wicket of R Ashwin on Saturday. Pic/PTI
India wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel almost had to eat his words after England came back into the match in the second session of Day Three when they picked up four wickets, giving away just 45 runs in 30 overs on Saturday. Two of those wickets - Patel himself and R Ashwin — were gobbled up by their part-timer Joe Root.
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"They (England) actually got exposed as there was no help from the wicket. The same thing will happen here," Parthiv said at the end of Day Two on
India out of trouble
India were in some distress at 307-6 before skipper Virat Kohli with some assistance from Ravindra Jadeja and later Jayant Yadav pulled the team out of troubled waters.
England came into this match with four seamers — James Anderson, Chris Woakes, Jake Ball and Ben Stokes — and two regular spinners — Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid. But they were so dependent on their spinners — they bowled 97 overs of the 142 overs in the innings so far that it gave the impression the wrong XI was picked.
Even Root agreed that they would have loved to have an extra spinner in the team given the way the Wankhede wicket has behaved.
"In hindsight, we would have liked to play an extra spinner. There wasn't as much movement as we had thought. Throughout the series we have generally got quite a lot of reverse swing and you have seen that from both sides.
'Didn't worked out well'
"But you look at the way the seamers operated for India, they didn't bowl as much they have done in the series as well. Obviously, leading into the game, we thought there might be a bit more in it for the seamers. It's not quite worked out that way so far," said Root.
The Yorkshireman wanted to look forward though and take heart from the way they bowled between lunch and tea on Saturday. "After that middle session, we got ourselves into a pretty good position. But it was quite frustrating that we couldn't take wickets at the back end there," he rued.
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