The turns that marked India v South Africa at Eden Gardens

Once again, in a home Test match, India turned a secondary spinner into a version of peak Ravi Ashwin

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Ravi Jadeja is bowling. Corbin Bosch is batting. And Rishabh Pant is flailing around like a fish out of water, trying to stop a ball. This is a delivery towards the end of day two of the first India vs South Africa Test, where Jadeja has bowled the ball slightly shorter than he normally would. But he’s given it a rip, and it’s spun violently, viciously, like it hit a pebble. But it’s also bounced, and it’s ended up almost going past Bosch’s throat. Except, it’s absolutely nowhere near his actual body because of the amount of spin it has got. It would be silly to say that Bosch played and missed this ball, because he wasn’t actually in the same time zone as the delivery when it was finally collected by Pant.

That’s how much this ball just deviated from normal. And Pant would have to actually become Spiderman to be able to grab it. He ends up in the dirt in the end, and everyone is giggling.

This is a ridiculous delivery to happen at the end of Day 2 of a Test match.

I’m telling you this story for a couple of reasons. It is a little bit of a metaphor. India found themselves in the dirt at the end, because of what this pitch actually ended up doing.

There are going to be a lot of cricket fans who are going to be talking about India and chases at the moment, and here’s the graphic if you need it, of all their fourth innings losses since 2018.

Of course, there’s a bunch of lower chases here that they didn’t do particularly well in. But that was a very long time ago, and almost in a galaxy far, far away when you look at the modern India side.

In the middle period there’s a lot of very big chases, which even though teams have got a lot better at handling, are still the sorts of games that you expect your sides to lose.