Former Windies fast bowling great Michael Holding urged the English fast bowlers to get some early Indian wickets and not rely too much on Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid to win them the game and series eventually. India is currently chasing down a target of 245 after India got two English wickets pretty quickly on the morning of the penultimate day of the Southampton Test.
Michael Holding gives his views on the current scenario of the match:
“The most important thing for England is to get some early wickets and not just think that it’s going to be the two spinners that will win the Test match,” Sky Sports quoted Holding as saying.
“They need the seamers to do their job so that when Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid bowl, they’re not bowling to the frontline batsmen – the best of India’s batting. “All you need them to be thinking is ‘Between us; if we get five or six we’ll be happy’, not nine or ten,” Holding remarked.
Ali was quite superb with the ball in hand in the first innings and bagged yet another five-wicket haul. This was his second five-for at the Ageas Bowl against India.
Off-spinnrAli used the rough patches to good effect and ended up bagging the five-wicket haul. However, his counterpart Ravichandran Ashwin failed to land the ball on the rough areas on a consistent basis and ended up bagging just a solitary wicket in the second innings.
Meanwhile, when the article was written, English bowlers bagged three quick wickets. The delivery kept pretty low and disturbed the timbers of Rahul. We have a great Test match at the store for us.
With Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli are still there, India will still back themselves to chase the target down.
