Pragyan Ojha looked a completely different bowler on Wednesday with a half-sleeves and a different action at Feroz Shah Kotla. (Source: Express Photo by Amit Mehra)

As South Zone took the field after the toss, Pragyan Ojha, the team’s star player, looked different. He seemed slimmer plus he wasn’t wearing his trademark “all-weather full sleeved” T-shirt. As the day progressed it emerged that Ojha in half-sleeves had taken a new avatar.

Media reports have said that the reason for the left-arm spinner’s makeover was BCCI’s recent drive to weed out bowlers with suspect action. With no official word from the Indian board, these are mere speculations. But it is a fact that Ojha on Day One at the Feroz Shah Kotla was no longer the bowler he once was.

Back in the day, the left-arm spinner was known for his swift strides in his diagonal run-up. This would give him the momentum to extract turn and bounce from the pitch.

Today(on Wednesday), his approach to the crease was much slower. He seemed conscious of his action and, maybe, even the position of his elbow. It can be argued that he was bowling on a first day track but Ojha certainly lacked the bite of old. A year back at the same venue, Ojha had troubled the Aussies. Those were the good old days. Out of the Indian team and a cloud over his bowling action, the tide has turned for the 28-year-old. Today(on Wednesday), he got the chance to bowl in the 24th over of the game. His first six balls were full in length, betraying the fact that he wasn’t giving those extra revs on the ball. Robin Bisht defended his first six balls as a matter of caution but went after him in the next over.

Also missing from Ojha’s bowling was the armer, a deliver that got him a number of wickets in the past. Ojha of the old would fox batsmen with his pacy armer. Invariably, he would get a lbw decision in his favour. With the changes that he has incorporated in his bowling, the spinner wasn’t sure of pulling off that variation.

By stumps he had bowled 16 overs and conceded 40 runs and taken the prized wicket of Bist. These are impressive numbers but still he wasn’t his usual self.