In England, R Ashwin & Ravindra Jadeja Need To Get The Drift

Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja was asked ahead of the first Test against New Zealand in Kanpur in 2016 about the difference in bowling on India's spin-friendly and England and New Zealand's

"Both drift the ball, Jadeja is a natural at that. Ashwin is a very clever bowler," said Maninder. Former India Test spinner Narendra Hirwani, who has also been coaching the current generation of spinners, says handling the shiny part is the key for drift.

"If you see [former Australian leg-spinner] Shane Warne's bowling, his deliveries would drift into the [right-handed] batsmen and then move away from the batsmen after pitching. The batsmen would feel the ball is coming to them but then it would move away, beating them," Hirwani told IANS.

"For an off-spinner [like Ashwin] the drift goes away from a [right-handed] batsman and then turns in. That is what deceives a batsman," he added.

"The shiny part has to go towards the drift," said Hirwani, who jointly holds the record for the best match haul on Test debut.

Along with the drift, the line will also be important. Former England spinner Monty Panesar said that the key will be to stick to the off-stump line unlike in India where you have to keep bowling at stumps, especially the middle-stump.

"In India, you have to bowl slightly fuller and at the stumps, a little bit straighter. In England you can bowl slightly shorter, on off-stump line. So you are bowling on to off-stump. If it slides a bit, it hits the middle stump and if it turns then it catches the edge," Panesar told IANS recently on being asked about the difference in bowling in India and England.

"In India, you can bowl the middle-stump line, maybe because the ball turns more and you have to bowl it fuller because the wickets are slower," the spinner, who had helped England win the 2012/13 Test series in India, had said.