Published 16:10 IST, March 4th 2021
Kevin Pietersen hails Indian spinners' bowling against England in Ahmedabad Test
Kevin Pietersen heaped praise on Indian spinners' consistency in the fourth & final Test match at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad
Kevin Pietersen lauded Team India's frontline spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel as the duo showcased yet another consistent performance on Day 1 of the ongoing fourth and final Test match against England at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.
Both Axar and Ashwin worked in tandem to bamboozle the Indian batsmen despite the coin landing in Joe Root's favor on Thursday morning.
'The Indian spinners are..': Kevin Pietersen
Taking to the micro-blogging site, Pietersen wrote that the Indian spinners are indeed very good after they ended up breaking the visitors' backbone in the first innings.
Even the passionate cricket fans were on the same page with KP but there were others who openly criticised the Joe Root-led side for their inability to pick the Indian frontline spinners especially R Ashwin even in the fourth Test match. Here are some of the reactions.
In his previous tweet, the 2010 T20 World Cup winner had said that since it is a flat wicket, England should make the most of their chances and at the same time, he also expected the middle-order trio of Ollie Pope, Dan Lawrence, and, wicket-keeper batsman Ben Foakes to take the English team to 275.
England suffer a batting collapse yet again
Even though Root had called it right at the toss, his batsmen including himself could not capitalise on their chances as they ended up losing wickets at regular intervals. Apart from star all-rounder Ben Stokes (55), and, Dan Lawrence (46), none of the other batsmen could make much of an impact on what seemed to be a good batting surface as most of them failed to breach the three-figure mark and were eventually bundled out for 205 in the 76th over.
The Indian spinners did much of the damage with Ashwin, Patel, and, Washington Sundar sharing eight wickets apiece. Axar Patel was once again the pick of the bowlers for the hosts with figures of 4/68 from his 26 overs while 'Ash' finished with 3/47 from his 19.5 overs.
Updated 16:10 IST, March 4th 2021