One of the reasons behind the dominance of the Indian team at home in the last 13 years, where they have been unbeaten in Test series since losing to England in 2012, has been the way Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have contributed with the bat in situations where the home side has found themselves under pressure.
There have been many occasions in the past when the top order of the Indian team has failed but, the all-rounders, whoever they are, have come to the rescue. When India faced Australia at the start of the last year at home, it was Axar Patel who displayed his class with the bat throughout the four games.
However, being the regular members of the red-ball side for a long time, mostly Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have come to the party, and they did the same when the Rohit Sharma-led side was struggling at 144/6 before the tea break.
Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja join Kapil Dev and Syed Kirmani in the elite list
Losing the toss under overcast conditions on a fairly green-looking surface, which was expected to be favorable to the pacers, India saw their top order being destroyed. Captain Rohit got an outside edge of the blade, while the struggle of Virat Kohli with the fourth-stump line continued in the game.
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Shubman Gill found an unfortunate way to being dismissed, while KL Rahul went into the shell before losing the plot when the spinners came in. Yashasvi Jaiswal was the only batter from the top order who showed a lot of resilience and calmness for his fighting half-century in the encounter.
Ravichandran Ashwin decided to show his aggression in the game, while Ravindra Jadeja joined him in the work. They put up a 195-run unbeaten stand for the seventh wicket to take India to 339/6 at the end of the first day. The former of the stand celebrated his sixth century of the format. They ended the partnership on 199 runs, which is now their fifth-best partnership for any wicket in Tests against Bangladesh.
The Gujarat-born, however, missed out on his well-deserved century, as he got an outside edge on the start of the second day of the game. Both of them now have joined the former two players of the national side, Kapil Dev and Syed Kirmani, in the elite list of the Indian batting pairs.
Only these two stands now have more than 500 runs at home for the seventh wicket or below. The partnership of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja sits at 504 runs in 14 games, while Dev and Kirmani have bagged 617 runs in 14 games. MS Dhoni and VVX Laxman are third on the list with 486 runs in just three games, while Kirmani and Ravi Shastri are in the fourth position with 462 runs in eight games.
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“Ravindra Jadeja was of real help, there was a point where I was sweating and tiring but, Jaddu helped me through the phase. He’s been solid and one of our best batters. He told me we don’t have to convert twos into threes, which was useful for me.” The Chennai-born expressed at the end of the first day of the game.
He finished with 113 runs at a strike rate of over 80 with the help of 11 boundaries and a couple of sixes, while Ravindra Jadeja missed out on what could be his fifth hundred of the format. The home side ended their first innings with 376 runs, as 232 runs came for the last four wickets.