MO MAKES MOS TOF 5 LIVES
England’s double act have last laugh after spin trial
If IndIa off- spinner Ravichandran ashwin caught any of England’s struggles here against an unknown Bangladeshi teenager, it’s safe to assume that he didn’t break into a cold sweat.
at the end of the first of 35 possible days of Test cricket in asia this winter, alastair Cook’s team had allowed 18-year- old Mehedi Hasan to claim five wickets on his international debut. It was to their credit that they scrapped their way to 258 for seven at stumps.
as a total it was neither here nor there. What it wasn’t — crucially — was a complete disaster. Such a small mercy was largely thanks to battling half- centuries from Moeen ali, who survived a worldrecord five reviews in his 68, and the relentless Jonny Bairstow, who became the first Test batsman in the world this year to pass 1,000 runs.
But ashwin, who recently moved to the top of the world rankings, will have made mental notes aplenty as England prepare for their five-Test series against India.
If this was a dress rehearsal, some of their batsmen risk walking out at Rajkot on november 9 wearing sackcloth and ashes.
In truth, it could have been a lot worse. Within an hour of winning the toss, alastair Cook was one of three batsmen back in the pavilion with only 21 on the board.
and at 106 for five midway through the afternoon, England still had work to do on a pitch that turned from the start and felt like an ominous portent of the trials that await them over the next nine weeks.
Moeen and Bairstow, who are fast becoming the most reliable double act in a long batting line-up, spared them immediate humiliation.
But Mehedi, whose claim to fame until yesterday had been helping Bangladesh to the Under 19 World Cup semi-finals, troubled everyone in only his 13th first-class game.
and that did little to encourage the thought that England can upset India on their own lavishly turning tracks.
There is time to improve, of course, and the wisdom of playing two Tests in Bangladesh before heading for a four-day wind-down in Mumbai on november 2 may yet make itself clear.
Cook will also remember his side’s implosion in the first innings at ahmedabad four years ago. He made 176 in the second, and though England lost that game, it helped convince his team- mates that India’s spinners could be tamed. Victories at Mumbai and Kolkata completed a famous series win.
But, while England were losing three wickets for three runs in 14 balls after moving cautiously to 18 without loss after nine overs, such memories felt as if they came from another world.
Ben duckett crashed a pair of attractive off- side boundaries on his Test debut before becoming the first of Mehedi’s victims, playing inside the line of a delivery that turned back to hit the top of off.
and if that left Cook with the familiar sensation of watching an opening partner pop in and out without stopping for coffee — duckett is Cook’s ninth in Tests since the retirement of andrew Strauss — then England’s captain had little time for reflection.
Three balls later, he got into a tangle trying to sweep the left-arm spin of Shakib al Hasan and was bowled off his forearm, having made only four. for a man celebrating an England-record 134th Test cap, it was all rather undignified.
When Gary Ballance, perhaps fortunate to be picked here ahead of Haseeb Hameed or even Jos Buttler, was lbw on review to Mehedi for a single, the vision of a nightmare winter hovered over England’s dressing-room.
Bit by bit, the metaphorical clouds lifted. Joe Root looked imperious in a 49-ball 40 that ended when he edged Mehedi to slip via the thigh of wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim, and Ben Stokes undid some industrious work against the spinners with a loose forward defensive to Shakib.
By then Moeen, in his first Test innings at no 5, had benefited four times from the minutiae of the decision Review System, including three times in six balls from Shakib either side of lunch as umpire Kumar dharmasena mislaid his sense of geometry. a fifth reprieve would follow on 29.
Moeen was far from fluent, but England didn’t care. The need for ‘dirty’ runs, as Moeen later called them, will be paramount in the weeks ahead, and his sixth-wicket stand of 88 with Bairstow — dropped at slip on 13 — changed the feel of the day.
Mehedi removed both men as the sun began to set over the Zahur ahmed Chowdhury stadium, finishing the day with an analysis for the mantelpiece: 33-6-64-5. and he almost had a sixth when adil Rashid padded up — a reminder that a non-spinning delivery can be as dangerous in these parts as the one that turns.
But Chris Woakes batted with his customary good sense, giving England a foothold in this game and underlining the importance of batting deep.
days like these — on a dry pitch, with men round the bat and hassled umpires making mistakes in the heat — are what lend subcontinental Test cricket its special flavour. Maybe, just maybe, England will look back on these opening skirmishes and be grateful for the experience.