India v/s England: Uprooting Joe out in mind

For a contest that was billed as one of the most mouthwatering of the ongoing series, Ravichandran Ashwin removing Joe Root only once – a rash shot in Vizag – in six innings before this Test must have irked the Indian a little bit. Ashwin loves to challenge the best, challenge his skill, challenge himself.

Enter Wankhede.

Having a close look at the pitch for the fourth Test, Ashwin knew there would be bounce on offer here. That was the cue for his mind to start working in overdrive. It's no secret that the Tamil Nadu bowler loves watching videos of his opposition batsmen, and he sure watched ones of Root as well.

Ashwin looked back at the England No. 3's recent history of dismissals against spinners, and mapped a pattern: getting caught at slip. The surfaces on offer for the first three Tests didn't quite give Ashwin the necessary lift after the pitch of the delivery for that kind of dismissal.

But on Thursday morning, witnessing that the Indian pacers were getting good carry on the Wankhede deck, Ashwin must have started replaying those videos of Root's dismissals against spin in his mind. There was a difference, though. He put himself as the bowler this time. The image in his mind was replicated on the field, frame by frame.

Ashwin tossed one up outside the off stump to invite Root for a drive. The England batsman accepted it but opened the face of his willow slightly. That was enough for the ball to take the edge of Root's bat and land to Kohli at first slip.

The dismissal was planned, visualised and executed perfectly, frame by frame.

"I worked that dismissal in my head because he (Root) has got out a lot of times in the slips," Ashwin said after end of play on Thursday. "In the last three Test matches that we have played, he nicked one in Vizag, well I thought he nicked it but that was turned over.

"But he has got a tendency to nick spinners to the slip cordon. I saw him nick Dane Piedt in South Africa. He has done it quite a few times to Nathan Lyon as well.

"So, I was just imagining it on the first day here. This is one of those wickets out of the four Tests we had where edges actually do carry to slips. So, I was just mentally working it over. And it happened," he added.

And so did the crumble by England batsmen in the last session, which was engineered by the offie again, taking three wickets in the space of six overs bowled by him. Ashwin said the bowling unit knew that the Wankhede deck would assist batsmen, and were biding their time for that one opening, which came in the form of Moeen Ali after tea.

"Generally, Wankhede has been a big bat-first-and-score-big kind of a Test match always. We knew that we will be up against the odds. We knew that there will be some moisture in the morning and wanted to capitalise on that, but we couldn't unfortunately. The afternoon session, I thought, wasn't all that bad. We gave away only 90-odd runs and took only one wicket. But that was a big wicket, we got Root.

"We thought if we get a couple of wickets together, we could try and patch it up, and try and finish the day on four or five down," Ashwin said.

Again, that's exactly what happened.

'Feels great to go past Srinath'

R Ashwin's dismissal of Moeen Ali was the off-spinner's 239th wicket in Test cricket, making him go past former pacer Javagal Srinath and climb to seventh on the list of most wickets by an Indian in Test cricket. Asked how it felt to go past Srinath, Ashwin said: "I wasn't aware of it. He was one of the champion bowlers for India, and to go past him is definitely (a great feeling). It wasn't on my radar when I started playing cricket, so I am definitely lucky."