England to rely on Jennings and Leach
Opener made debut century against India Somerset spinner set for recall to Test squad
England will go into the five-test series at Edgbaston on Wednesday better prepared than India, and this time they had better make it count. In their last Test series in 2016, England outplayed India in the opening match at Rajkot but let them off the hook by declaring their second innings too late – and never again did they get a sniff as the hosts won the last four Tests.
While Virat Kohli’s team are not going to play enough red-ball cricket before this series, England’s Test players have done some hard yards, both in the championship this week and on their last tour of India. Rather than faint at the prospect of facing Indian spin, England will probably have five batsmen in the squad to be announced today who have scored Test centuries not only against India but in India – and that does not include Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler, who have been red-hot this summer whatever the ball’s colour.
Alastair Cook has scored more Test centuries in India (nine) than any visiting batsman from any country. Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Keaton Jennings have all produced one, while Moeen Ali – who deserves to be in the Edgbaston squad as the second spinner – has scored two. All that remains is for Edgbaston’s groundsman to leave some grass on, to play to England’s traditional strength of seam.
It is therefore a unique opening pair England have: both Cook and Jennings scored a century in India on their Test debut, after flying straight in to fill a vacancy. While Cook’s hundred was the first of many, Jennings’s was the better and more valuable. Cook, in the Nagpur Test of 2006, accumulated his runs steadily in his second innings ahead of the declaration, which (again) came too late for England to dismiss India a second time and win.
Jennings flew to Mumbai to replace Haseeb Hameed, who had broken a finger in the third Test. He could not have had better preparation in Dubai than being trained by the Lions coaches, Andy Flower and Graham Thorpe, two of the best left-handed players of spin in modern times: and the reverse-sweeping drills which he had done with Flower brought Jennings many of his runs against Ravi Ashwin. It still took some sangfroid to walk out at the Wankhede Stadium and score 112, but the former South Africa Under-19 captain has always had a sound head.
No fluke, either. In the next Test in Chennai, England had to bat out the final day. No alarms as Jennings performed with the same calm as Cook in putting on 103 for the first wicket. When spin is introduced against batsmen who are set, it is not half so effective as against new batsmen, which England proved by collapsing in the final session.
Jennings’s minimal footwork against pace was found out by South Africa last summer. This season he has not literally taken huge strides when playing forward but, much the same as Cook at his best, his weight is well-balanced. He has scored three championship centuries for a struggling Lancashire and was capped yesterday morning, along with Buttler. If Edgbaston were to turn next week, then Moeen – instead of being 12th man – could replace Dawid Malan at No 4. Funnily enough, England’s batting order for their past two Tests in India could be exactly the same next week: namely Cook, Jennings, Root, Moeen, Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler and Chris Woakes. England’s specialist spinner, to go with James Anderson and Stuart Broad, has to be Jack Leach. Offspinners can take wickets against India but normally that only happens after some serious tap: Moeen’s 10 wickets in India cost 64.9 runs each because Kohli and his batsmen established the same psychological hold over Moeen as they did over Adil Rashid. Leach will turn the ball away from their right-handers and has steadiness on his side, not to mention some long boundaries. Leach, on his debut in Christchurch, was steady in both innings, with a back-foot force a la Marcus Trescothick; he was steady under a skier at fine leg; he was steady when he bowled, even when let down by his close catchers. A very different frame of mind from that of Rashid in India, when he began well with 13 wickets in the first two Tests, before Kohli and Co got on top and he ended the series in resigned hopelessness. Rashid re-established a grip over India in the white-ball games this summer and this has to be preserved if England are to defeat India in next summer’s World Cup. For India to dominate Rashid again in the Tests would be the worst of both worlds, or formats, for England.