As the floodlights came alive on Tuesday evening, the spinners on both sides had more to appreciate than just the aesthetics of the sporting facility. With the curator sticking to the cliche of ‘the pitch helping the pacers early and spinners later in the day’, the slow bowlers would have rejoiced.

The spinners will hope for an encore after they proved difficult to negotiate in the first ODI — Ravindra Jadeja (9-0-39-1) and Nathan Hauritz (9-1-34-1) returning with best figures on Sunday. As was the case at Vadodara, in Nagpur too the pacers will be pushed around while the spinners can expect to walk with a swagger.

Before the tour started, Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting had said how his batsmen played the Indian spinners during the middle-overs would hold the key to the series. The score of 292 and Harbhajan Singh’s spell of 10-0-57-1 made coach Tim Nielsen say, “They are quality spinners. We played them pretty well.”

In the opening match, the Aussies had come out with a well-thought plan to counter the Indian spinners. During the powerplays early in the innings, they took their chances but as the ball got older, they were circumspect. According to Nielsen, the phase that Ponting spoke about was between the 26 to 34 overs — the period before the ball change. “As the ball gets older, it takes the pace off it and it becomes difficult to score,” he said.

An analysis of Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling figures explains the point. After his first spell of 4-0-29-0, he came into his own — during the 26 to 34 overs — gave just 10 runs in five overs. That was the period where Jadeja tied down the free-flowing Ponting and eventually had him lbw.

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