Debutant Dawson leaves India in spin with record knock
Rookie helps to put Test almost out of hosts’ reach Rashid hits 60 as the tail drag England to 477
There was a real possibility England’s busiest ever year in Test cricket would end with a whimper in a half-empty stadium in a city preoccupied with life matters far more important than a cricket match.
But through the batting of their spinners, Liam Dawson, Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali, England lifted their firstinnings total to 477 and, in doing so, ensured it will take a monumental effort from India to win this game.
The pitch has so far been a pudding and India eased to 60 for no wicket by the close, leaving this game needing a rapid deterioration in the surface on the final two days for a result, or the kind of brilliant performance from Virat Kohli that would help heal cyclone-ravaged Chennai. Only once before have a team scored more than 450 in India and lost the game. If it becomes a second time over the next few days then there really is a crisis in England’s Test cricket.
A dead rubber with the team 3-0 down evoked memories of Sydney three years ago when England were thumped in three days by a rampant Australia.
The Sydney comparison looked even more apt when England picked Dawson for this match. At the Sydney Cricket Ground it was Scott Borthwick thrown into the fray after all other spin bowling options had been exhausted (mentally in the case of Monty Panesar, physically for Graeme Swann).
Dawson, who took just 22 wickets in championship cricket last summer, was picked as England’s fourth-choice spinner of the winter and lucky to be even considered fourth choice given that Jack Leach, of Somerset, had better credentials.
Surely, Dawson was all set to be remembered alongside Borthwick and Simon Kerrigan as dead-rubber debutants on a hiding to nothing.
But instead he scored 66, the highest total by an England No8 on debut in Test cricket, breaking the record set by David Bairstow, also against India, in 1979. He put on 108 for the eighth wicket with Rashid, an England record in India, as the last three wickets added 156 invaluable runs.
That Dawson made an impression with the bat was not a surprise. He started life as a batsman, was Hampshire’s youngest ever centurion in 2008 and has a higher first-class batting average than Jos Buttler. He played all the spinners comfortably, using his feet and defending well.
As a player who admits himself he is more suited to white-ball cricket, Dawson batted within himself, showing he also has the patience for the longer game and character that persuaded Trevor Bayliss to pick him for a World Twenty20 earlier this year having never seen him play in a live match.
He shrugged off being struck on the helmet second ball by Ishant Sharma and stared down Kohli, when the world’s most famous cricketer and home team’s captain almost hit him with a shy at the stumps designed more to unsettle the debutant than run him out.
Dawson opened up after reaching his fifty, lofting Ashwin down the ground for six with the kind of shot that would not have looked out of place when he was playing in the Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 two weeks ago.
It reversed a day that began badly for England as the pitch again started in
lively mood. The first hour has been the trickiest time to bat on the first two days and England lost three quick wickets.
Ben Stokes fell to the fifth ball of the day when he left his feet on the crease and prodded forward with the inevitable edge off Ashwin ending in the hands of slip.
India’s pace bowlers, armed with a ball only five overs old, cranked up the pace with Sharma beating the outside edge and hitting Buttler on the body. It messed up Buttler’s footwork and he was pinned leg-before playing across his pads.
India now started bouncing Moeen Ali, who had escaped the short stuff the day before as he reached his hundred. He top-edged two pulls, was hit in the armpit and chest before top-edging another short ball to be caught by the fielder on the square-leg boundary.
Rashid had already shared a 99-run stand this winter with Chris Woakes in Dhaka, and the value of lower-order runs was again apparent as he steadily rebuilt with Dawson.
Rashid took his time to get in and Dawson had to take over the scoring but once the leg-spinner was settled he soon started playing his favourite shots through the off side.
He beat Dawson to a fifty but Kohli summoned Umesh Yadav to bowl another quick spell and his extra bounce found the edge as Rashid wafted at a wide ball.
Stuart Broad was run out after confusion over a third run with Dawson and last-man Jake Ball hit Ashwin into the guttering on the pavilion roof as the tail played on tired bowlers.
India had lost Murali Vijay to a damaged shoulder, further inconveniencing a team already patched up as the result of injuries so Parthiv Patel opened with K L Rahul.
England’s seamers could not reproduce the pace and bounce of Yadav and it was a fairly comfortable session for India apart from when Rahul pulled up sharply clutching his leg after swishing wildly at a wide delivery.
Dawson had just one over, fizzing one ball past the outside edge and another almost earning a catch at short leg that would have completed the perfect personal story, but the pitch at this stage looks like defeating both sides.
England have played 17 Test matches this year, more than any team since India somehow managed to get through 18 in 1983.
A sense of exhaustion would certainly be understandable, even for the highly paid, centrally contracted stars of the present day, but England are still bubbling away with the enthusiasm of debutant Dawson providing the spark.