Michael Vaughan on our identity crisis as India close in on second Test win
England? My England?
It will take one of the great defensive efforts for England to avoid going 1-0 down in the series and deny India marking the first Test in Visakhapatnam with a home win.
England face the onerous task of batting at least four sessions, around 140 overs, in the fourth innings on a worn pitch against India’s spinners to save the second Test once Virat Kohli has declared today with enough runs in the bank. If England can somehow channel the determined performance yesterday of their two veteran seamers, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, into their batting then England may just have a chance.
So much will rest on Alastair Cook and Joe Root as the best two players of spin, and mentally toughest individuals in the team, to provide the stubborn resistance that will play on India’s patience and ego of their captain.
It will also be a great opportunity for Haseeb Hameed to live up to the ‘Baby Boycott’ tag and produce the kind of attritional innings that would have made the great Yorkshire batsman proud.
But even the most optimistic of England supporters will expect to board the flight to the Punjab on Tuesday for the third Test in Mohali with India ahead in the series and a template in place for winning the rest of the series.
By the close yesterday Kohli had guided his team to 98 for three, a lead of 298 that is already beyond the highest fourth-innings run chase in India. The pitch is turning more, although nowhere near as extravagantly as those in Bangladesh, but it is the variable bounce that catches players out, and Kohli’s job will be to judge how long he thinks his attack needs to take 10 English wickets.
England will look back on this Test and rue the early batting collapse that looks set to cost them the match. At 80 for five on Friday, they handed the Test to India.
A real hiding could have materialised but Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow batted skilfully yesterday in difficult circumstances dealing with low bounce, Ravi Ashwin sensing he was on top and the seamers bowling with reverse swing.
They survived for 265 balls, adding 110 runs, and took valuable overs out of the game, reducing the figure England will have to defend in the second innings.
In the process Stokes and Bairstow extended the number of runs the team have scored for their sixth wicket this year to 1,727, England’s best-ever for any partnership. It speaks volumes for the strength of their lower order but also the weakness of the top, which has too often left it to the all-rounders to dig the side out of trouble.
Together as a pair, Stokes and Bairstow have scored 772 runs in seven stands in 2016, the most by any two batsmen for England. They are aggressive and hit the ball hard in the modern way, but Stokes and Bairstow dragged their team into a fighting position here by batting with great patience as both scored their slowest half-centuries in Test cricket. Bairstow was more aggressive, while Stokes concentrated on defence but still put the bad balls away with venom.
What promised to be a tricky morning started ominously for England when a pumped-up Bairstow fell over his feet walking out to bat. “I made myself look a bit of a wally,” he admitted.
It hindered him for the first 15 minutes but he found his stride, geed up by Stokes at the other end. They saw off Ashwin, and were untroubled apart from one half-chance of a stumping when Stokes was on 21.
The morning looked to be going entirely England’s way until 10 minutes before lunch when Umesh Yadav produced a quick yorker. As a bottomhanded player, Bairstow had closed the face of his bat trying to flick to leg, but missed it and was bowled.
Stokes had to continue the fight for as long as possible but was soon gone after lunch. Ashwin went round the wicket, and Stokes pushed forward and missed a ball that turned just enough to beat his bat. It flew to silly point, India claimed the catch, but the umpire gave Stokes out lbw. A review upheld the call. As he reached the dressing-room door, Stokes hurled his bat and gloves to the ground, not in dissent at the decision but in anger at himself.
Zafar Ansari reviewed a plumb lbw against Ravi Jadeja and Ashwin finished off matters with two in two balls to take his first five-wicket haul against England.
India had a 200-run lead and could have enforced the follow-on, but Kohli did not want to bat last on this pitch. Instead he wanted an aggressive start to the second innings to buy his bowlers as much time as possible to dismiss England, but Broad and Anderson were magnificent in stemming the runs, taking three for 22 in 14 overs.
Broad has been diagnosed with a tendon strain in his right foot and will not play in Mohali next week, giving him two weeks’ rest before the fourth Test in Mumbai. But he ignored the discomfort and bowled six precision overs of seam, removing the two openers, both to wise reviews.
Anderson produced a peach that nipped back and bowled Cheteshwar Pujara, but Kohli is batting on a different level to everyone else.
He become only the second Indian captain make a century and a fifty in the same Test, and this match looks destined to be his.