Saransh Jain Shubman Gill in IND vs SL Test. Image Credits: AFP
By the time Saransh Jain finally ended Lahiru Kumara’s 58-ball resistance early on Day 4, the moment carried little of the excitement it should have. This was his maiden Test wicket, one that had taken so long to arrive in his career, yet his face betrayed little emotion. Just a stoic expression behind black glasses as he joined his teammates for the customary handshake.
Perhaps it was understandable. He had waited nearly 20 overs for the breakthrough, enduring several close calls along the way, and had been largely ineffective for most of the day. By the time his first reward finally came, the very reason he had been preferred over Kuldeep Yadav had already been removed from the equation.
How Sri Lanka negated Saransh Jain’s threat
Saransh Jain's length distribution in 2nd Test
The start itself was a false one for Saransh Jain. He overstepped the front crease and began with a no-ball. Even after getting his front foot in check, though, he struggled to pose much of a threat to the Sri Lankan batters, who scored freely against him.
They drove him off the front foot with relative ease, while even their defensive shots rarely produced consistent outside edges.
Saransh bowls with an open-chested release, but his hips do not fully rotate before delivery, and his action is not particularly repeatable either. As a result, he cannot rip down the side of the ball, leaving him reliant on a slower pace and a loopier trajectory to generate turn.
He does get substantial drift, particularly because he operates from wide of the crease, but on a surface that doesn’t offer much assistance, it also gives batters enough time to adjust.
The sequence involving Pasindu Sooriyabandara in the 31st over summed it up. Saransh surprised him by turning one sharply into him from a good length, but there was little zip off the surface, allowing Sooriyabandara to dab it towards the off side from the back foot.
Saransh then tried to push the next delivery through quicker, presumably looking to beat the batter from the back, but dragged it down instead. Sooriyabandara had enough time to work it past point for a boundary.
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Against right-handers, Saransh managed only a 10.25% false-shot rate across the two innings. He fared better against left-handers, producing false shots off 26.62% of deliveries, more than any other spinner in the second Test.
But much of that number came against Lahiru Kumara, who somehow survived despite repeatedly finding himself in low-control situations. Once again, Saransh's inability to extract enough grip from the surface worked against him, particularly on a pitch that did not deteriorate as much as expected after the rain.
In the 28th over of the third innings, he deceived Kamindu Mendis with an arm ball that skidded on with the angle and took the bat-pad, then beat the outside edge with a classic off-break on the very next delivery.
The third ball brought a slight inside edge as Mendis looked to nudge towards square leg. Three consecutive deliveries had left him uncomfortable. Yet, to be fair, he was never truly close to getting out.
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That perhaps best captured Saransh's challenge on a slowish surface without much natural bite. His back hip moves relatively straight through the delivery, limiting his ability to snap the wrist and make the ball grip sharply after pitching.
There is a trade-off to that: the same action helps him retain his natural drift. But in Colombo, where the surface offered little assistance, his drift alone was not enough, for the batters had just enough time to adjust.
The fuller lengths and scoring shots
Saransh Jain on drive and sweep shots in 2nd Test
In one sense, Saransh Jain’s ideal length in Sri Lankan conditions should have been slightly fuller than Ravindra Jadeja’s and Manav Suthar’s.
He does not bowl as quickly as either of them, so he cannot afford to hang the ball in the air for too long, as that would make it easier for batters to get onto the back foot.
He therefore needed to operate more consistently in the 4-5 metre range, but too often strayed either side of it.
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Only 42.37% of his deliveries landed in that 4-5 metre window. He went fuller, between 3 and 4 metres, with 19.07% of his deliveries, while 27.97% were shorter. Overall, only 61.44% of his deliveries landed between 3 and 5 metres, the standard length range for spinners in Sri Lanka.
That inconsistency made both the drive and sweep easier to execute. As many as 29.03% of the batters’ runs against him came through sweeps. Unsurprisingly, batters swept 48% of the deliveries shorter than 5 metres.
With his high-arm release, those lengths allow the ball to rise around thigh-to-waist height, giving batters enough time to get down and roll their wrists over the shot. Saransh will also count himself slightly unlucky to have run into batters who were particularly adept at sweeping.
It was only marginally shorter than five metres in the 85th over when Sonal Dinusha crouched low and got under the length to slow sweep over deep midwicket.
Earlier on Day 3, he slog-swept another delivery marginally fuller than this for a maximum. It was so arduous for Saransh to counter them with his limitations.
Another 24.19% of his runs came through drives, with 81.81% of those shots coming against deliveries fuller than 4 metres. Kamindu Mendis and Pasindu Sooriyabandra weaved a massive partnership, and drives were a highlight of this stand in the third innings.
The pattern was strikingly clear: when Saransh went full, Sri Lanka drove; when he went short, they swept.
Saransh faces a harsh reality of international cricket
India made a conscious effort to give Saransh Jain enough time and responsibility to settle into the Test, at times perhaps to the point of overbowling him.
He sent down 20.4 overs in the first innings, conceding at 3.30 an over before picking up two late wickets. After India enforced the follow-on, the off-spinner was again entrusted with extended spells, bowling 17.4 overs for one wicket at an economy rate of 3.10.
In a way, Saransh’s inability to build sustained pressure also left Manav Suthar exposed. On Day 4, the Sri Lankan batters came out with a clear intent to attack Suthar, and succeeded in taking him out of the game. The left-handers, in particular, once again found a way to put him under pressure.
Across the two innings, they scored at 4.95 runs per over and hit a boundary every 9.90 deliveries without losing a wicket.
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This was precisely the scenario India had anticipated when they chose Saransh ahead of Kuldeep Yadav. But he could not make inroads when India needed them. His wickets came, but often only after the damage had already been done.
Saransh bowled 43 legal deliveries to Kamindu Mendis without finding a breakthrough, and India eventually needed a slice of luck and a loose shot to get rid of him in the third innings.
Earlier, he went nearly eight overs against an all-LHB ninth-wicket partnership without a wicket. That included Lahiru Kumara, a tailender with an FC average of just 9.96.
Despite bowling 66.94% of his deliveries to left-handers against an LHB-heavy Sri Lankan batting unit, Saransh could not make the most of the opportunity.
His performance exposed the areas he still needs to work on: putting more body behind the ball and, perhaps most importantly, tightening his length control. At this level, there is very little room to get away with such limitations. Unfortunately, Saransh found that out at the very first opportunity.
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