Jurel to play, Reddy released for SA first Test

Jurel, who scored his first Test century against West Indies in the Ahmedabad Test and hit unbeaten 132 and 127 for India A against South Africa A, was confirmed in the line-up on Wednesday.

With Pant, who is set to take over keeping from Jurel, coming in, Nitish Reddy was released from the squad to join the A side for the one-dayers against South Africa A.

“I don’t think you can leave him out for this Test, is the short answer,” batting coach Ryan ten Doeschate told the media on Wednesday when asked about Jurel. “But you can only pick 11 as well. So, someone else will have to miss out. And given the way Dhruv’s gone in the last six months, scoring two hundreds in Bengaluru last week, he’s certain to play this week.”

The bigger focus though is on how far spin will impact the Test.

As far as lasting impact goes, Mitchell Santner’s name should figure somewhere at the top of India’s list of nightmares in home Tests. Also, Ajaz Patel, Steve O’Keefe, and of course Monty Panesar. All left-arm orthodox spinners, each with match-winning figures in the last 15 years, every success a stinging reminder of India’s slowly dipping stocks against this particular type of bowling. South Africa come with similar hope, armed with left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj — on his second tour of India — who is leading possibly the most spin-heavy bowling attack ever.

You would think India would be in a different mental space now that the Test team has been restructured after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retired. Nothing screams success like a drawn series in England under a rookie captain. And the preparation against left-arm spin has been pretty intensive too at the Eden. But India are not leaving anything to chance, making subtle changes that have not gone unnoticed by South Africa.

First, the pitch. “I think it will be good wickets that deteriorate as the game goes on,” Maharaj said on Tuesday. “If you watched a bit of the West Indies series, it went to day four and five. The narrative is changing in terms of getting wickets.”

Making turners at home had become the norm under MS Dhoni. And even though England won 2-1 in 2012, India routed Australia 4-0 three months later. Kohli went down the same lane, but the thought process may be changing was evident in how lively the Ahmedabad pitch looked on Day 1 of the Windies Test. The Eden track isn’t that green, but it also doesn’t have that dry, bare look the Pune pitch had last year against New Zealand.

“It looks like a good wicket that should spin later. So yes, it’s not just going to be about the spin,” ten Doeschate said. “Importantly, the batters are going to have to do really well in the first few days when batting should be slightly easier. Of course, both teams have quality sets of fast bowlers. So, I guess the challenge for both is the combination to go in with.”

India backed themselves to score heavily in the past because they had some of the best players of spin. As that ability waned, they were found out more often by visiting spinners. And since this gap can’t be covered overnight, the only other thing India could have done was to modify the pitch. It comes with two distinct advantages – Japrit Bumrah stays interested for longer phases, and scoring won’t be as difficult on the first three days.

“We are going to be relying a lot on our seamers to make early inroads in the first couple of days,” said ten Doeschate. “I guess that’s what you want from a really good Test wicket where it’s not just reliant on one of the facets being too important to the game. But I do think spin is going to be important on this pitch in the long run.”

Man for man, India still have a better spin attack even if Kuldeep Yadav doesn’t play. But Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar assures them batting backup. “Washi, Axar, Jaddu, for me, you’ve actually got three batters there,” said ten Doeschate. “So, it does give us a lot of flexibility. I would say we’re quite lucky in the sense that we’re getting to a point where some of those all-rounders could play as either a batter or a bowler.”

Ten Doeschate thinks South Africa will probably play three spinners, but an unfair division of workload can go against them. This strategy won them the tour of Bangladesh and helped level the series in Pakistan, but India are much better players of spin despite relative inexperience.

“Hopefully we’ve learned from the New Zealand series,” ten Doeschate said. “We’ve put some plans into place against how to play spin.”

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