Auckland, Nov 6: Spinner Ajaz Patel feels that New Zealand’s preparations back home and their adaptability to different conditions helped them register a historic 3-0 Test series sweep over India last week.India were blanked at all three venues – Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai – by visiting spinners led by Ajaz and Mitchell Santner with Glenn Phillips playing an assisting role.
“If I’m honest with you, we had a great winter back home where we prepared on turning wickets and we made sure we had different surfaces that we tried and practiced on so we were, I guess, conditioned to bowling on different surfaces as well. So yeah it’s a lot to do with preparation but then it’s also about backing your skills and kind of I guess you know going out there and doing it really,” Ajaz was quoted by Cricbuzz.
It’s been three different surfaces and three different games, and I guess we’re well aware that one of the challenges of going to Asia is that the conditions are going to change all the time and you have to be adaptable and even within the game the conditions change very quickly. I mean even in this Mumbai Test I was bowling… I think in the first innings and I felt like I was bowling really well but the wicket wasn’t really turning and then I came back after lunch, and all of a sudden everything started happening,” he added on his bowling experience in India.
Ajaz, who was the leading wicket-taker with 15 scalps for New Zealand, elaborated on how he tackled the conditions with a change in pace and said, “So I guess when you come to the subcontinent, it’s about having that skill set and that range of being able to whether it be bowl in the high 90s or bowl in the low 80s and being able to be adaptable in those ranges, I guess from the outset. It’s also reading the surface quickly because the conditions, like I say, do change at a constant (rate).”
Sometimes the conditions in the morning can be very different to the conditions in that middle session and so as a spinner, it’s about knowing how to get the most out of that, how to change your pace, how to go up and down while still having the ball shape,” he added.
The left-arm spinner credited spin consultant Rangana Herath for his contributions and strategic insights that helped the New Zealand spinners come out on top against the Indian batters. He also spoke about the importance of the straighter delivery for a spinner and how it makes life difficult for batters on turning tracks, and also how the New Zealand batters were well-prepared in that regard.
“Obviously he’s got a wealth of experience in the subcontinent, and his record kind of speaks for itself, really, in terms of left-arm spin bowling. So I mean, for me, it was great to have him because we’re quite similar, I guess, in terms of the style of bowling that we both bowl.
“But I think the biggest thing was, he gave us a really good idea around the kind of fields to set in terms of Asian conditions and still be attacking, but also at the same time, have our options to limit the boundaries as well,” he said.