Curran carries the fight after England collapse once more
India pacemen devastate home team’s top order Innings of 78 from No8 prevents humiliation
England, thanks to the 20-year-old Sam Curran, have been given a second chance. They can still beat India – and kill off the growing prospect that they will become only the second Test team to blow a 2-0 lead – provided they limit them to a first innings lead below 100.
If James Anderson can overtake Glenn Mcgrath’s world record (for a pace bowler) of 563 wickets, preferably by taking seven wickets in India’s first innings alone; or if Stuart Broad can wind back the clock, rather than averaging only three wickets per Test as he has done since his glorious eight for 15 in the 2015 Ashes; or if Curran can pluck more rabbits out of his precocious hat, England will still be in this game, and their specialist batting – who knows? – might even function in the second innings.
But the likelihood is that England have already blown it by collapsing yet again, to 36 for four after Joe Root had chosen to bat first, and to 86 for six, before Curran applied the plasters. India’s bowling was superb, yes, and maximised the movement on offer, but the bounce is the truest of this series and the pitch has been easing as it has dried. This is becoming a bad dream for England: they were running away from India with a 2-0 lead, but the tourists are gaining ground relentlessly, and England cannot escape their clutches.
Just as India’s bowling has kept on improving, with Jasprit Bumrah now the most potent bowler in this series, England’s batting has kept on deteriorating – their specialist batting, that is. England’s top-order batsmen have been sucked into a downward spiral, none of the top four able to reach 30 since the opening Test, and it is only players down the order who can score runs – when the ball has aged, of course, and softened.
Here it was Curran and Moeen Ali who put their foot in the door by adding 81 for England’s seventh wicket. Batsmen out of form in a five-test series of back-to-backs have no opportunity to escape and regain their confidence but this pair, not selected for the third Test, had instead scored runs for their counties. Curran’s omission at Trent Bridge, in favour of the pent-up Ben Stokes, may prove to have been the turning point of this series – the moment when England began to reprise the Ashes of 1936-7, dominated by Don Bradman’s resurrection.
Fresh minds are what Curran and Moeen brought to their task, or fresh in the case of Curran and refreshed in that of Moeen. And this seems to be the rule at present: the regular inhabitants of England’s dressing room are stuck in a mire, which only newer and younger players – unscarred by failure – can rise above. Last winter, Craig Overton was twice England’s top-scorer; Dominic Bess, another fresh-faced Somerset all-rounder – or rather another bowler who can bat – bolstered England against Pakistan; Chris Woakes hit the match-winning hundred at Lord’s against India, and Jos Buttler the face-saving one at Trent Bridge.
Alastair Cook was the most disturbing of England’s latest failures because his dismissal was entirely the result of the batsman’s error. Keaton Jennings was startled by Bumrah’s ability to swing the ball into left-handers as well as away from them; Root himself persists in playing shots from the start of his innings, as if stuck in white-ball mode, and yet signs up for more T20. But Cook lost patience after an hour and a half, trying to dab a wide ball past three slips in a high-risk venture – and what is Cook if not the personification of patience and stubbornness?
Stokes, having rocked the boat at the start of the Trent Bridge Test, did his best to steady it in his second innings there, and again in his 23 off 79 balls yesterday. Could he have been more attacking? The reality was that India’s pace bowlers moved the ball both ways all morning, when the ball seamed at first then swung, and into the afternoon when the sun disappeared. Buttler tried to play as he had at Trent Bridge but did not have the early luck on this occasion; Stokes, intent on defence, was stuck in first gear, so it took a fresh mind to drive freely.
Curran gave a patient crowd the chance to cheer at last, especially when – calculated and fearless – he went after Ravi Ashwin and raised his 50 with a slog-swept six. Such maturity and such sensible shot-selection, like Bess and Woakes, unlike so many elders and betters. Curran has clearly never done anguish and doubt, or soul-searching conversations with grave coaches.
And India’s bowling meanwhile becomes ever more formidable. Comparisons with West Indies’ four-man pace attack a generation ago faded when Hardik Pandya pitched too short and could not fulfil the role of fourth seamer, but Ashwin was recovered from his abductor injury and is vastly better as an off-spinner than Roger Harper.
This is such a recent phenomenon too, which has come to fruition only in this series. The proof is that India have won two successive Tests abroad outside Asia only four times ever, and there was no great merit in any of those achievements: once was in Zimbabwe, another in New Zealand in the years when they were sideburned amateurs, the third in Australia during World Series Cricket, while the fourth instance occurred in 1986 in England.
Bumrah has sharpened India’s teeth in the last two Tests, and revealed his ability to set up batsmen with movement one way then trap them with one going the opposite away. Both he and Mohammed Shami can bowl long spells as well as moving both ways, while Ishant Sharma specialises in fast inswing.