Pink Ball Test: Spinners dictate terms as records tumble, Virat Kohli overtakes MS Dhoni

India’s Axar Patel claimed an 11-wicket match haul as they beat England by 10 wickets inside two days in the day-night third Test on Thursday, dashing the tourists’ hopes of making the final of the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) in June.

The shortest Test match ever played in the history of cricket occurred in 1931/32 when Australia played South Africa in Melbourne (656 balls). The Ahmedabad game in 2021 lasted 844 balls.

Spinners dictated terms on a pitch that made life difficult for batsmen. 27 wickets were taken by the tweakers– the most by spinners in a D/N Test.

There was no end to England’s batting woes against the spin duo of Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin as the side folded for 81 in its second innings to set India a target of 49.

Patel picked five wickets in the second essay, adding to his outstanding haul of six in the first innings as England collapsed. He now has three five-wicket hauls in his first 4 Test innings.

Ten-wicket hauls in D/N Tests:

11/70 AXAR PATEL v Eng Ahmedabad 2020/2110/62 Pat Cummins v SL Brisbane 2018/1910/174 Devendra Bishoo v Pak Dubai 2016/17

Ashwin, on the other hand, added four more to his first-day spoils of three scalps to cross the 400-wicket mark in the longest format.

He became the fourth Indian after Anil Kumble (619), Kapil Dev (434) and Harbhajan Singh (417) to achieve the feat. Ashwin bagged 400 wickets in 77 Tests, the second-fastest ever.

This was also England’s lowest Test score in India.

England’s aggregate of 193 runs in this Test is the fewest for them in a Test since 175 runs against NZ in Christchurch in 1983/84 (93 & 82).

England’s two innings lasted 79.2 overs – the fifth-fewest overs it has taken to bowl England out twice in a Test, and second fewest since 1904 (West Indies skittled them twice in 74.4 overs at Edgbaston in 1995).

Interestingly, the Pink ball Men’s Test has never ended in a draw and this is 16th Pink ball Test in the history of cricket.

With this victory, India captain Virat Kohli (22) overtook former skipper MS Dhoni (21) with the most Test wins as Indian captain at home.