How spin (left arm)bowling restricted English batsmen, especially 6 left handers!.
Rangana Herath picked 8 Test wickets in England series, and Ravi Jadeja picked 2 in 2Tests, yet they were the most effective bowler.
These two bowlers made English left handers play almost every ball in recent Tests, making them vulnerable to score runs. They were strangled by their line and length. Teams that employ a defensive tactics(English team)for their batting love to leave a lot of ball. And both these left arm spinners did not allow that to happen.
The left handers were choked as they had to play ball that came back to them, and these two spinners executed this tactics.
So far this this is how Left handers performed overall in 4 Tests(2 v/s SL , 2 v/s Ind).
| Left handers | Inn | Runs | Balls | 4/6s | St.rate | Ss/100balls |
| Cook | 8 | 115 | 296 | 16 | 38.9 | 18.58 |
| Moeen | 8 | 247 | 675 | 36-1 | 36.6 | 17.33 |
| Ballance | 8 | 409 | 815 | 50-1 | 50.2 | 25.28 |
| Broad | 8 | 134 | 144 | 24 | 93.1 | 38.19 |
| Anderson | 8 | 111 | 233 | 21 | 47.6 | 17.6 |
| Stokes | 4 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 18.58 |
And comparison how they played left arm spin of Herath and Jadeja in 4 Tests(2 v/s SL , 2 v/s Ind). 602 balls faced, 262 Runs @2.61/overs. 5 Wkts
| Left handers v/s left arm spin | Inn | Runs | Balls | 4/6s | St.rate | Ss/100balls |
| Cook | 8 | 15 | 42 | 0 | 35.71 | 30.95 |
| Moeen | 8 | 79 | 207 | 7-1 | 38.16 | 20.77 |
| Ballance | 8 | 117 | 232 | 8-1 | 50.43 | 31.03 |
| Broad | 8 | 23 | 52 | 2 | 44.23 | 26.92 |
| Anderson | 8 | 28 | 65 | 5 | 43.08 | 16.92 |
| Stokes | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Here are the scoring zone for left handers against left arm spin.
Here is a video analysis of this theory.
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