Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh turned in another devastating display of spin bowling on a minefield of a pitch. Kumble had done most of the damage so far, but today, Harbhajan bowled an unbelievable spell of 10.4-5-8-4. None of the batsmen played him with any measure of assurance. The not-in-control factor against him today – that is, when batsmen played and missed, edged, mistimed their shots or were rapped on the pads – was a high 67.2%. Yesterday, it had been a much lower 26.2%. For Kumble, there was hardly any difference in the not-in-control factor between yesterday and today – 25.7% this morning, and 27.6% yesterday.

Harbhajan also got his line spot-on. Almost 29% of his deliveries today were on off stump, compared to just 8% on the fourth day. Yesterday, he drifted on to middle stump or further down leg side 20% of the time; today, he almost halved it to 10.9%. And he exploited the rough patches on the surface wonderfully, getting more than 95% of the balls to pitch on a length. Yesterday, he had allowed batsmen to leave or pad up to 14 balls; today, the batsmen got that luxury just twice.

Clearly, Harbhajan was at the batsmen all the time this morning. On a pitch like this, all that a spinner needed to do was put the ball on the spot and allow the pitch to do the rest. Harbhajan did that. And reaped the rewards.

S Rajesh is sub editor of Wisden.com India.

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