ENGLAND PAY FOR ECB GREED
Hundred obsession leaves Root’s rabble to be floored by India
Never have an england side had such little preperation for a marquee Test series. Never have administrators shown such little respect for the most important form of the game. And never has such a pathetic display of batting been so utterly predictable.
The first day of what should be the showpiece series of the summer turned into the nightmare it always threatened to be for an england team starved of any sort of meaningful action ahead of facing one of the best Test sides in the world.
And, really, it was an act of selfsabotage by the eCB — who seem happy to sacrifice success in the best and, we should remember, most profitable format at the altar of white-ball cricket. Specifically, their own new crackpot invention in the Hundred. Not that anything should be taken away from a quite brilliant bowling performance by an India team who have spent their time since defeat in the World Test Championship final by New Zealand six weeks ago quietly getting ready for this big day.
India were superb after leaving out their best spinner in ravichandran Ashwin and backing their seamers, led by the bustling Mohammed Shami and the unique Jasprit Bumrah.
england, by contrast, have barely played any first-class cricket since their own defeat by New Zealand at edgbaston in June and, remarkably, were handing three of their players — Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler and Sam Curran — their first red-ball appearances of the season.
Others like Joe root and Dan Lawrence had not faced a single delivery with a red ball in any match since that sorry defeat by the Kiwis, while Zak Crawley had managed just six balls. How can that be, on August 4 for goodness sake, by any sane cricketing logic?
A full house at this magnificent ground arrived more in hope than expectation that england could somehow muster their traditional dominance in home conditions over an India side without a series win here since 2007.
And when england battled their way to 138 for three on the brink of tea, despite the loss of rory Burns to the fifth ball of the match, it did seem they might upset the odds and eke out a competitive total after packing their side with batting.
But it was then that Bairstow, who had made a promising return to Test cricket, became the second england batsman to be given not out by umpire richard Kettleborough only for the Decision review System to prove him wrong.
After that it was simply carnage, six wickets crashing for 22 and the last seven for 45 as only Curran could put a little late gloss on an inadequate display that saw england dismissed for fewer than 200 for the seventh time in nine Test innings against India.
Six of those, of course, came in the extreme spin conditions served up by India last winter after england had won the first Test in Chennai. This time it felt so much worse because it came on the green grass of home.
Not that england — who again left out their own spinner in Jack Leach — could manage anything like the same potency in the hour left after being bundled out for 183.
India comfortably moved to 21 without loss by the end of a sobering day without any alarms, even against Trent Bridge specialists Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad.
Nothing summed up the whole sorry affair more than the painful innings of Buttler, one of the most gifted white-ball batsmen in the world now hopelessly exposed by a swinging red one.
Buttler looked more like a man picking up a bat for the first time as he spent 18 agonising balls on nought before being put out of his misery by Bumrah, who swung the ball at sharp pace throughout, off his curiously short, stuttering run-up.
If Buttler was embarrassed by India then he was not alone. Dom Sibley spent 70 balls doing the hard work to make just 18 before limply lobbing the ball to short mid-wicket.
And the award for worst shot of the day went to Ollie robinson for spooning straight to mid-on. Four england batsmen in all were dismissed for ducks but worse still were those like Sibley, Bairstow and Crawley who got themselves in before then giving their wicket away.
Through it all stood root, trying to hold his team together and becoming england’s leading runscorer in all formats on his way to 64, despite seemingly suffering from the back stiffness that can affect him.
Alas, the captain, who seems to be carrying the weight of the world on that fragile back, could not convert his first half-century in 12 innings into the hundred england so desperately needed.
Instead he fell lbw to the medium pace of Shardul Thakur, only playing here because of injury to Ishant Sharma.
How long ago now seem those three monumental innings by root against Sri Lanka and India last winter, two of them double hundreds, that evidently were only papering over the huge cracks in this england batting line-up.
And how wrong it has all gone since england seemed to be on track last summer for their goal of peaking at this winter’s Ashes, only to start becoming their own worst enemy with a rest and rotation policy that prioritised eoin Morgan’s Twenty20 World Cup aspirations.
Now this. england are fragile enough without going into this five-match series with one hand tied behind their backs.
Yet already the eCB are reaping what they have sown with their shabby treatment of Test cricket. Yesterday england were hoist by their own governing body’s petard.