ENGLAND BLOW IT ALL OVER AGAIN
Third Test Special
THEY had their chance. They had the perfect opportunity to seize the initiative from India and bat their way back into this series. And England blew it.
Alastair Cook would have gone to bed on Friday dreaming of winning this most crucial of tosses in a country where the flick of a coin really can be a decisive factor in the outcome of a Test match.
But, even though the England captain handed his side a significant advantage by correctly calling heads ahead of this third Test, he then saw them waste their good fortune with a series of quite awful shots.
Only the excellent Jonny Bairstow, who has shored up England’s batting throughout the year, batted as a Test player should, with the right mixture of defence and attack, in making 89 in England’s shocking 268 for eight. The bulk of England’s other batsmen should hang their heads in shame for simply giving it away on a Punjab Cricket Association Stadium pitch that started dry and cracked and must have been at its best yesterday for batting.
Not that England can in any way blame the surface for a plight that was again down to their top order under-performing as they continued to tread the wrong side of the fine line between positivity and recklessness.
Yes, there was swing with the new ball for India and reverse-swing with the old one, while their spinners are masters at exploiting home conditions. And there was no sign of any mints being sucked to assist them, either. But, really, there was nothing that a very good Test team, which England aspire to be, should have been afraid of and there was no reason why they should not have now been well on their way to a score of 450-plus.
England will not get anywhere near that now and only if their bowlers somehow surpass themselves will they be able to entertain ambitions of levelling the series with two to play. That series, in all probability, was lost yesterday.
And even if England do somehow drag themselves back into this Test and the series, they will have to do something quickly about the fragility that threatens to undermine their quest to again become the best Test team in the world.
No fewer than five of the top seven only had themselves to blame for the pickle which saw England crash to 87 for four just before lunch and then 213 for six, squandering their last hope of a formidable total.
Cook and Haseeb Hameed had done so much of the hard work to battle through the first hour before the teenager got a brute of a delivery from Umesh Yadav that took off from a length and rapped his top hand on its way to gully.
But if Hameed could do nothing to avoid another unfortunate dismissal — the boy wonder has had it tough since his debut of rich promise — then his more experienced colleagues could not match his disciplined example.
Cook has not looked his usual self here, even though he scored a century in Rajkot, and he survived two chances — the second a dolly to Ravi Ashwin — before edging an attempted cut to a rank long hop from the off-spinner’s first ball. That came after Joe Root had begun the demise with arguably the worst shot he has ever played on England duty, playing all round the first ball after drinks at the start of four successive maidens from Jayant Yadav. Moeen Ali was moved up to the problem position of No.4 to accommodate Jos Buttler in a rejigged middle order and has batted in every position from one to nine for England apart from his position for Worcestershire of No3. That can’t have done anything for his chances of settling but that does not excuse the carelessness that saw Moeen take his eye off the ball and hook down fine leg’s throat with lunch in sight. It was typical of England’s day.
Ben Stokes and Bairstow have rescued their side so often this year — and in a middle session that saw England hit 113 they looked set to do it again — only this time for the fifth wicket instead of the sixth. That was until Stokes played for spin where there was none from Ravindra Jadeja and ran past one to present Parthiv Patel with an easy stumping on his return to the India side.
Virat Kohli provided Stokes with an unnecessary send-off — the India captain is a constant unedifying, angry presence in the field — and Stokes stopped to respond before firm and sensible umpiring from Marais Erasmus prevented what could have been a nasty incident escalating.
It led to a rap on the knuckles for Stokes from the International Cricket Council for reacting to India’s provocation but Kohli was lucky to escape disciplinary action himself. Send-offs are cowardly.
It really was the toughest of situations for Buttler to make his overdue return to Test cricket but he showed enough to prove the selectors have erred in leaving him out for so long, before he too got out to a careless shot.
That just left Bairstow to shoulder the burden which he did brilliantly despite offering two chances to Patel — and surviving an lbw shout that saw Jadeja show dissent to umpire Chris Gaffaney — before Jayant Yadav struck him on the front pad and Erasmus took his time before correctly raising his finger.
The fall of Chris Woakes to the new ball rubbed salt into England’s wounds and left them contemplating an uphill battle in this most northerly of India’s Test venues.
It is one they really ought to have avoided having to make.