"Big concern is England's spinners" - Kevin Pietersen scared after Yashasvi Jaiswal's 'Jazball’

Yashyasvi Jaiswal’s attacking innings of 76 off 70 balls has put England on the backfoot at stumps on day 1 of the first Test in Hyderabad. India ended the day on 119/1 after bowling out England for 247 inside three sessions. India still trail by 127 runs but find themselves in a dominating position heading into day 2.

Jaiswal added an 80-run opening stand with skipper Rohit Sharma and started his innings with a four. He was almost flawless in the way he approached the innings taking particular liking to debutant Tom Hartley. The left-arm spinner went for 63 runs off his nine overs with Jack Leach going for 24 runs off nine overs and picking the wicket of Rohit Sharma. Rehan Ahmed went for 22 off his three overs.

Kevin Pietersen looked concerned for the inexperienced England spinners after the way Jaiswal attacked all of them, especially Hartley. Pietersen recalled the impact of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar from the 2012 series and felt that the current lot cannot extract the amount of purchase from the Indian pitches.

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“My big concern is England’s spinners. I said it before the series. When we won here in 2012, we had Swann and Panesar, who outbowled Ashwin, Harbhajan and Pragyan Ojha. Unfortunately, from what I have seen here today, I can’t see these three spinners outbowling Indian spinners. I just didn’t see the ball spin enough. A couple of balls, they got to spin,” Kevin Pietersen said while speaking on Sports18.

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Yashasvi Jaiswal Did Not Allow England Spinners to Turen The Ball: Kevin Pietersen

KP further said that Jaiswal’s assault on the inexperienced England spinners did not allow them to settle on a good line and length. He further said the England spinners could not turn the ball as much as the Indian spinners did.

“But England spinners just never got the border spin. Yes, they weren’t allowed to spin it because Yashasvi Jaiswal was hitting it. But also you only need one ball to spin or two balls to spin. They just couldn’t get into spin. You contrast that with India. First of all, we thought, Oh, here we go. Next ball. Then we get the ball to bounce. Then we get the ball to spin. Then another one bounces. We just didn’t see that with the England spinners,” Pietersen added.

Like Pietersen, Anil Kumble also spoke about the England spin attack being highly inexperienced as compared to the experienced Indian spin attack. Mark Wood was the lone specialist seamer as England opted to drop James Anderson from the playing XI playing two keepers ion Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes. The move ultimately failed as Foakes was dismissed for just four runs off 24 balls.

“It will all depend on how Jack Leach leads the spin attack. Three spinners, of course, the English management obviously have had a look at the pitch and they believe that it’s going to take turn,” Kumble replied to a PTI query during an interaction organized by Jio Cinema.

“In that sense, just with one fast bowler in that lineup, it’ll be interesting to see how they go about because I certainly thought that once Harry Brook was unavailable, they had the choice to go with Jonny Bairstow as the keeper and then bring in another fast bowler” Kumble added further.

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