How Vastrakar killed the game on a turning track

The 'Bay H' stand at the DY Patil Stadium was the place to be on Saturday. The 100 school kids brought in as part of a CSR exercise by a multi-national company, and a few fans who had long booked their tickets and made it for the weekend - the last two days of the Test - were making the noise that we are so used to during a cricket match in India. Close your eyes and you wouldn't know it was a sparsely-filled stadium for a women's Test.

Rhythmic chants of "let's go, Deepti" were followed by banging of the plastic seats. And the chant for the star of the day? "Kaun hamari superstar [Who is our superstar]? Poooojaaaa Vastraakaaaar!"

India had declared overnight and set England a mammoth 479. Out of the 182 overs bowled across the first two days of the Test, India's contribution was just 35.3. Their bowlers were well rested and, on a colder-than-usual Navi Mumbai morning, India felt they were better off bowling.

While England seamers bowled in lines outside off, Indian seamers attacked the stumps. As per ESPNcricinfo logs, India attacked the stumps 48 times in the first ten overs in two innings with England managing to score only 15 off such deliveries. The corresponding numbers for England's bowlers and India's batters were 34 and 17.

India's plan to have catching fielders for an uppish flick also continued on Saturday morning. In the sixth over of the day with a backward short leg and a square leg in place, debutant Renuka Singh managed to swing one in sharply and rap Tammy Beaumont on the back leg. After going to the top of her run-up, she gestured towards one of those fielders before running in again. Perhaps reminding Beaumont of the presence of the two close-in fielders. She bowled the next one wide of the crease, landed it on a fullish length on off, got it to straighten and took the off stump. Beaumont, rooted to the crease with the wicketkeeper standing up, was beaten on the outside.

Just like in the first innings, Harmanpreet Kaur opted for a pace-spin combo to start with, and brought Vastrakar as the first change in the tenth over. And Vastrakar effectively killed the match. After Sophia Dunkley cut a length ball straight to backward point, she struck a telling blow, dismissing Nat Sciver-Brunt, who had scored 59 in the first dig. She angled a length ball in, which Sciver-Brunt looked to defend off her front foot but left a huge gap between bat and pad to be bowled for a first-ball duck.

Not long after, Vastrakar got one to hold its line and dismissed Heather Knight caught behind to have England 68 for 4. Vastrakar had dismissed Knight in the first innings as well, that time with a nip-backer to trap her lbw.

Vastrakar bowled only one more over after that and finished with 3 for 23 before Deepti Sharma and Rajeshwari Gayakwad picked up the last six wickets.

"The more you play Test cricket, long-form cricket, the better your skills get," Harmanpreet said after India's 347-run win, the biggest win in women's cricket. "That's why we backed her [Vastrakar] for this Test, so that she bowls more and gains confidence. In Tests, you can try certain things and set the field accordingly. You start trusting your skills. We saw her confidence as she bowled and picked up wickets.

"Every pacer wants to bowl with the new ball, because there is movement. But as per the team's plan, we give Renuka the opportunity to bowl first. Pooja supports that and she is ready to bowl first-change. Even today, the first 40 minutes were important, and she was okay to come later on."

Vastrakar offers a skillset that is rare in Indian cricket - a fast bowler who can bat and hit big, much like Hardik Pandya in the men's set-up. She can hit speeds north of 110kph - the delivery that dismissed Sciver-Brunt was bowled at 111kph - and cause even set batters discomfort.

"They [the India seamers] managed to get a little bit of nibble, the seam movement, this morning when you hit a good area," Knight said later. "That accounted for a few wickets in the top order. Pooja, in particular, was outstanding, especially the late seam [movement] she got off the wicket. She is really tricky when she bowled the wobble ball at a good length. Didn't give us a lot of opportunities to score."

Apart from troubling the batters who grew up in seam-friendly conditions in England, Vastrakar also showed her athleticism on the field multiple times, no less in the run-out of Beaumont in the first innings - swooping towards square leg from short midwicket and nailing the direct hit. Not to forget the couple of not-outs with the bat.

"The wicket didn't bounce much, particularly as the game went on, and so getting forward was really important," Knight said about countering seam. "Most of the seamers' wickets were lbw or bowled, apart from a couple of nicks. [We tried] to bat out of our crease, trying to hit really straight down the ground, trying to combat that seam movement… For Renuka, for example, getting on to off stump and trying to get outside the line if it doesn't nip back in."

For far too long, Harmanpreet - and other India captains before her - have resorted to spinners whenever the match situation gets out of hand. Here, too, Deepti stole the show with her nine wickets, but Vastrakar showed during her short spell that she, too, could turn the games around.