The mark of a great team is when they have players who put fear into the opposition, before the match has even started. For India, in their ascent to the No.1 Test ranking, the two players who have had that aura about them, that "I am going to win this match for our team" belief, have been Virat Kohli and R Ashwin – so how great it was to see the two of them step up at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
England came into this fourth Test, hoping to pull one back to keep the series alive, and they began well, winning the toss, batting first and posting 400, which, historically on this ground, meant they were not going to lose the Test match.
The thing with this India team, though, is that they find ways to pull rabbits out of the hat via their chief magicians Kohli and Ashwin.
Ashwin pulled out a few mundane rabbits – by his own ridiculously high standards that is – in the first innings, by picking up six wickets to keep England at a score of exactly 400. While that looked like being a potentially match-winning score, Ashwin would have known his best performance in this Test match is yet to come – in the second innings, when, with that red soil breaking up, the ball would turn, bounce and do things that only the off-spinner can make the ball do.
India's next rabbit – the best one of the match – came from Kohli, who played his best innings to date, striking a quite remarkable-how-easy-he-made-it-look 235 – his highest score in Test matches.
Kohli, first, came in and put on a vital partnership with Murali Vijay, when India were in a spot of bother having lost Cheteshwar Pujara to just the second ball of day three, with the India captain then breaking the England bowlers and reducing them to "oh c'mon man, put us out of our misery," by allying with Jayant Yadav, India's find of the series.
One more rabbit was needed, to bring out the standing ovation, and that came via Ashwin, who wrapped up the Test match with such consummate ease.
Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow would have envisaged putting on a big partnership to try and give their bowlers some sort of target to defend, but with Ashwin in the mood that he was in, beguiling the batsmen, the planning and visualisation of the English batsmen were rendered pointless.
A carrom ball of the highest order got even Bairstow nodding in "ok, nothing much I can do there," with Ashwin showing he can spin it both ways, by producing the perfect off-spinner to get Chris Woakes out and complete his ten-for for the match.
Adil Rashid and James Anderson played shots of tail-enders to gift the great man two more wickets, and make him the holder of the best figures at the Wankhede for an Indian, and at the end of another game, everyone was left marvelling at the brilliance of this India team, led by two players with such a strong winning mentality, that through their skills and sheer "we don't know how to get beat" willpower they keeping adding W's to India's Test match collection.
