Whyindiaeyeinga bright English summer
Except Cook and Root, an anaemic English batting gives Kohli’s boys the edge in fivetest series
NEW DELHI: Judged purely on quality, this India-england Test series may not be of the standard witnessed in 2002 and 2007. Both teams have undergone huge transformation after the 2012 tour of India that England won 2-1, but man to man, India look in better shape despite jarring inconsistencies.
India’s opening combination still requires tuning while needless tinkering has left the middleorder look frail at times. But that hasn’t seemed to affect India’s home dominance. The win in Johannesburg earlier this year has further bolstered hope that this unit is on the precipice of greatness. To earn that reputation without having the solidity displayed by the Fab Four in their heyday is an achievement.
Once the No 1 team, England have slipped, especially at home. Since beating India 3-1 at home in 2014, England have lost at least one home Test to New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan (two series — 2016, 2018), South Africa and even the West Indies.
In eight home losses in the last four years, England were not able to aggregate 600 runs in two innings. In the other two losses, England totalled 748 and 605 against New Zealand and West Indies. Both don’t have the most consistent pace attacks. So with quality pacers, India stand a good chance to rile England.
One of England’s major issues is the plethora of opening combinations that have misfired in all losses barring the defeat to New Zealand in Leeds in May, 2015. Cook has somewhat tried to hold up one end but that is just half the job. It’s been six years since Andrew Strauss has retired but England’s indecision means they have tried out 12 opening combinations till the last series against Pakistan.
Cook knows what it takes to be No 1. “To become the number one side in the world, it takes two or three years of really good results and we haven’t had that. The team has been changing as we’re finding out different things about different players and different combinations,” he said on Monday.
Cook himself is yet to score a hundred this year but given the instability at the other end, England need him to hold forte as long as possible. Captain Joe Root however will be under the pump to convert his fifties. The last time he did that was in August last year, against West Indies at Birmingham, the venue of the first Test against India.
Maybe this is the right time for Root to get into the groove, especially with Virat Kohli showing how to convert good starts into big hundreds. Root has more fifties (40) compared to Kohli (16) but the India captain already has 21 hundreds against Root’s 13. If Root keeps failing to convert good starts, England could be in real danger of losing a marquee series. Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler are more mature now but the reality is bulk of England’s batting will have to come from Cook and Root. India would want to exploit this vulnerability as early as possible.
1971: India 1 England 0
Spinners BS Chandrasekar (13 wickets), S Venkataragahavan (13) and Bishan Bedi (11) scripted India’s first series win in England. After draws at Lord’s and Manchester, in the third Test at The Oval, however, Chandrasekar’ 6/38 skittled England out for 101 in the second innings, leaving India a target of 173 that they achieved with four wickets in hand. pace of Mohammad Nissar. “...And what a series of shocks they gave us Sutcliffe, Holmes, and Woolley out for 19 runs in 20 minutes!” the Cricketer wrote in their weekly report ending July 2, 1932. India ultimately lost that Test by 158 runs but nobody took them lightly after that.
1986: India 2 England 0
The only non-english batsman to score three successive tons at Lord’s, Dilip Vengsarkar led India’s charge. He scored another century in the second Test at Leeds where Roger Binny (5/40) and Maninder Singh (4/26) bundled out England for 102 and 128, respectively. This was perhaps the most dominating show by India overseas with Vengsarkar aggregating 360 runs with an average of 90.