India’s transitioning top-order can’t rely solely on the stability of its lower order, especially Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.
India has lost just four Tests at home since December 2012, and the spin duo has been the centrepiece of this invincibility.
They have been part of 44 Tests at home since 2013, of which India has won 34 and lost just three, translating to a win percentage of 77.27.
Despite 800 Test wickets between them, the Ashwin-Jadeja combine also tells a tale of a lower-order resistance with the bat that has allowed India to preserve its indomitable home record in Tests.
It also includes the grit and valiance of other members of the spin tribe — Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav — who have extended India’s tail.
India’s lower-order, which entails batting positions 7,8, and 9, has been doing the heavy-lifting largely owing to the middle-order’s (positions 4, 5 and 6) dwindling returns.
Between the periods 2016-19 and 2020-24, the top six batting positions have all witnessed a steep decline in averages in home Tests, with the No. 4 spot suffering the sharpest drop — from 82.06 to 29.80.
The importance of lower-order runs has also reflected in India’s team selections, with Axar often pipping Kuldeep to the playing XI owing to his greater batting ability.
With India hamstrung by the lack of a genuine seam-bowling all-rounder, the team has also relied on Shardul Thakur for the cushion of some extra runs in the lower order.
But new head coach Gautam Gambhir isn’t losing sleep over trying to develop a fast-bowling all-rounder.
Ahead of the first Test against Bangladesh, he instead found occasion to celebrate India’s bevy of spin-bowling all-rounders, who fittingly repaid their coach’s faith.
With India getting its long Test season underway with its top and middle-order in transition, Rohit Sharma and his men have a dependable fail-safe in Jadeja and Ashwin, and by extension, Axar.
India do well to limit their dependence on that luxury and seek more accountability at the top as India’s challenges will only mount in its bid for a third consecutive berth in the final of the World Test Championship.