IS THIS REALLY TEST CRICKET? OUTCRY AS INDIA HAMMER ENGLAND
England are hammered in shortest match since Second World War. As Root says crowd were robbed, we ask...
JOE ROOT complained that the crowd were short-changed by the conditions during the third Test after England crashed to a ten-wicket defeat in a little over five sessions — the shortest completed Test since 1935.
Seventeen wickets fell on a frantic day in Ahmedabad, which began with Root taking an incredible five for eight as India collapsed to 145. But his team were then skittled for 81, handing the hosts a 2-1 lead ahead of next week’s final Test. The result means England can no longer reach the final of the World Test Championship in June.
While Root admitted they had been outplayed, he also said a big crowd had been robbed of the chance to watch some of the world’s best fast bowlers on a difficult pitch where 28 of the 30 wickets fell to spin.
‘It’s a real shame because it’s a fantastic stadium, 40,000 people have come to watch a brilliant, iconic Test match and I feel for them,’ he said.
‘They came to watch Virat Kohli face Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Jack Leach, and Ravichandran Ashwin against our top batsmen like Ben Stokes.
‘You look at Ishant Sharma playing his 100th game: he’s bowled a minimal amount of overs. Or Jasprit Bumrah. You’re looking at some of the best bowlers in the world. I almost feel like the fans have been robbed.
‘Instead, they had to watch me get wickets on there, which shouldn’t be the case. That’s a frustration for a lot of people. Every now and then you expect to deal with a surface that is quite challenging. Whether it’s fit for purpose is more a question for the ICC than a player.
‘As players, you want to compete against the best in whatever conditions there are. But there’s got to be a contest there.’
England are determined not to look like whingers after two Tests in which India’s slow bowlers have dismantled them for totals of 134, 164, 112 and 81. Root insisted he didn’t want to see England’s Test venues serve up greentops this summer by way of revenge when India visit for a five-match series. But he did single out the difficulty of facing the pink ball, which skidded on and helped explain why 20 of the game’s 30 dismissals were either bowled or lbw.
‘The plastic coating, and the hardness of the seam compared to the red SG, meant it almost gathered pace off the wicket if it hit the shiny side and not the seam. A lot of those wickets were due to being done for pace, beaten on the inside. I think my five-for sums up the wicket.’ India’s captain Kohli had a more straightforward explanation for a result that leaves his side needing only to draw the fourth Test to qualify for the final.
‘I don’t think the quality of batting was at all up to standard from both teams, to be honest,’ he said. ‘The ball was coming on nicely on the first day, and the odd ball was turning.
‘It was bizarre that out of 30 wickets, so many were to straight balls. It was down to lapses of concentration, or playing for turn and beating on the inside.’
Yet how can a game that finishes in barely more than five sessions be anything but an embarrassment?
What were we saying about this pitch being better than Chennai? The benefit of that doubt should not have gone to the groundsman after day one because this, sadly, was another surface not fit for Test purpose.
Yes, England were abject with the bat but the fact Root could introduce his part-time off-breaks and take five for eight emphasised beyond doubt that conditions were far too heavily weighted in the ball’s favour.
Even when Root and Leach were skittling India in the first session yesterday to take the last seven wickets for 31, the writing still seemed to be on the wall for England.
India’s lead then stood only at 33 but it just did not seem feasible England could bat for at least the last two sessions of the second day on that pitch against Ashwin and Axar Patel and put pressure on Kohli.
And when two wickets fell to the first three balls of England’s second innings — with an overturned dismissal sandwiched between the two — it became certain India would take a 2-1 lead.
What drama there was when Zak Crawley played down the wrong line to Patel’s first ball and when Jonny Bairstow missed a sweep next ball and was given lbw — but stayed in after a review.
That would have given Patel a hat-trick in only his second Test yet his disappointment was short-lived as he crashed the next ball through Bairstow’s flimsy defences to leave England nought for two after three balls.
England’s only hope was if their best two players of spin in Root and Stokes could somehow find a method to cope with conditions where some balls turned and spat but the bulk went straight on with Patel’s arm.
They did manage to put on 31 for the fourth wicket, riches in a total of 81, and Root survived a contentious TV umpire decision when Chettithody Shamshuddin overturned Anil Chaudhary’s lbw call. But Root only added three more to his 16 before he became one of Patel’s five victims and Stokes fell again to his nemesis Ashwin.
When Ollie Pope and then Jofra Archer also fell to Ashwin, the Indian off-spinner had 400 Test wickets, second only to Muttiah Muralitharan in his speed to the landmark.
It is a fantastic achievement but he still played second fiddle to Patel, finishing with 11 wickets in the match before India’s third spinner Washington Sundar chipped in by claiming his first in
Anderson. Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill raced to their target of 49 in 7.4 overs as England’s misery was complete.
They have a week now to somehow find a way to survive and score on what is sure to be a carbon-copy of an Ahmedabad pitch in the last Test but the odds are overwhelmingly now on the convincing India victory we all expected before England produced that great upset in the first Test.
There will be much talk about England picking too many seamers on what turned out to be another raging turner. But Root’s performance yesterday showed why they tried to play to their strengths with a pink ball supposed to swing under lights.
England did not lose because they put Anderson and Broad together again but then saw them rendered impotent by conditions. They lost because their batsmen could not cope when the odds were tilted significantly towards India’s world-class spinners. And that is unlikely to change in time for the last Test.