England pay price for long hops and muddled thinking
JOE ROOT switched the bails around, Stuart Broad style, on the top of a set of stumps all too rarely threatened. But there was to be no Ashes-like tempting of fate in England’s favour on a day when the harsh reality of this tour came into sharp focus for Ben Stokes.
It was a trick that worked spectacularly for Broad against Australia on that dramatic day at the oval when his plea to the cricketing gods for the perfect farewell was happily granted. No such luck now. Not in the dust of Hyderabad on a day of toil that saw an India side almost unbeatable in their own conditions expose the limitations in this England attack.
When Root did his Broad impression India were on 303 for five but far from conjuring up a wicket, the hosts were just allowed to plough on to finish Republic Day in front of a holiday crowd of nearly 30,000 on 421 for seven.
It is far too early to write off Bazball in this series just yet, even though England are 175 behind and facing a monumental task to stay in contention. But England’s bowlers looked a pale imitation of the formidable home spinners and simply did not pose anything like the same threat nor find anything like the same turn.
There were far too many bad balls from debutant Tom Hartley and teenage leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed in particular for Stokes to exert any sort of control, and the captain did not have the best of days himself with some decisions that were puzzling at best.
Only some desperately poor shots by batsmen seemingly taken by surprise by the number of long hops and the most comical of run-outs stopped India from being out of sight of England and already closing in on victory.
There are, of course, mitigating circumstances. England, as is their wont, have been bolder than ever in selection but it was optimistic in the extreme to expect Hartley, a slow left-armer with a modest first- class record, and Ahmed, a highly promising but still raw leg- spinner, to bowl anything like as potently as Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.
But there are still questions to be posed. Like why did Stokes not open the bowling with Root, as he told us he would do before the match, and instead persist with Hartley for a nine-over spell on the first evening that tested the spinner’s upbeat character to the limit?
When the off and leg-spin of Root that was good enough, remember, to take five for eight in Ahmedabad three years ago, was eventually introduced for the first over of the second day, he took the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal for 80 with his fourth ball. Stokes also seemed reluctant to put faith in his senior spinner Jack Leach, who bowled just two overs in the morning session and looked stiff in the field in his first game after recovering from the stress fracture of the back that kept him out of the Ashes.
Leach’s use in only short spells was later put down to him banging his knee injury twice in the field, another setback for a bowler who has suffered far too many of them.
It is also legitimate to question why, if England really did want to play only one bona-fide seamer for the first time in Test history, they chose Mark Wood rather than the man who could have given them that missing control and longer spells, Jimmy Anderson.
Comfort must be sought where possible. Hartley showed he is made of the right stuff in a lengthy bowl and ended up with two wickets, albeit both gifted to him by Shubman Gill and KL Rahul with uncharacteristically loose shots.
Ahmed, meanwhile, produced a few beauties to go with regular poor deliveries, one of which saw Shreyas Iyer hit a halftracker down the throat of Hartley at deep midwicket.
It could have been different. Rahul, who topscored with 86, edged his second ball off Root past the gloves of Ben Foakes — umpire Paul Reiffel erroneously signalled byes — and was perilously close to lbw off Root, England’s most threatening bowler, on 66.
Jadeja was actually twice given out on his way to an unbeaten 81 but he calls for a review with the same sense of theatre and elan as he celebrates batting milestones and twice he was justified in doing so.
The slow left-armer showed the same self-preservation instinct when he was caught in a desperate mix-up with his partner in crime Ashwin, both sprinting for the same end with Jadeja narrowly getting there first. Another gift of a wicket for England.
They clearly cannot win this series on gifts alone and England will have much to ponder if, as now seems almost inevitable, they lose this first of five Tests.
Their mission improbable suddenly got a whole lot tougher.