India Struggling Under England Spinning Spell! Ranchi Test, Day2

England spinners, Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley, have made India struggle, once again after Hyderabad, and put the home team in a precarious position on the second day of the 4^th Test between India and England in Ranchi today. Bashir who replaced Rehan Ahmed is the chief damager, capturing four very important scalps that are Yashasvi Jaiswal (73), Shubman Gill (38), Rajat Patidar (17) and Ravindra Jadeja (12). This was followed up with gusto by the match-winner of the First Test, Tom Hartley who consumed one of the two debutant match-winners of the Third Test, Sarfaraz Khan and then dismissed R Ashwin whom the team dearly depended upon to hang on for the day and thus anchoring a partnership with Jurel, the second successful debutant of the Third Test. The two English spinners took absolute control of the proceedings after James Anderson removed captain Rohit Sharma cheaply and in just the third over of the India reply. Like in the previous outing a partnership was blooming between Jaiswal and Gill, but was cut short by Bashir getting Gill LBW at the team score of 86/2 (partnership restricted to 82 only). After that the Indian wickets started tumbling at regular intervals: 112/3 (Patidar), 130/4 (Jadeja), 161/5 (Jaiswal), 171/6 (Sarfaraz) and 177/7 (Ashwin). The inexperience of the team lay exposed this time.

Well, you can’t expect the youngsters to fire every time and take the team out of crisis or get it to a winning position every time. The captain, even though he did contribute a century in the previous test, must be determined to carry on and at least contribute a moderately good score; the same applies to the relatively more experienced Gill who failed to anchor the partnership in spite of Jaiswal going great guns at the other end; it’s okay to give another chance to Rajat Patidar who has been failing since the selectors were kind enough to include him in the playing eleven, but then the selectors should’ve first checked the availability of the relatively more experienced batsmen in the reserve—like for example, the axed Shreyas Iyer who doesn’t at all deserve a permanent deletion; and more disastrously, you can’t afford to drop your main strike bowler Jasprit Bumrah with the Series still undecided, particularly in the absence of the other strike pacer Mohd Shami.

If the would-be deficit is more than a 100 runs India would still face a huge challenge even if England manages to score only around 150 runs in their second innings; simply because as per the Hyderabad and other similar experiences on ‘home’ turfs where the ball turns, keeps low, induces vicious reverse swing and capitalizes on the pronounced uneven bounce, the home team invariably finds the pitch unplayable in the fourth innings. Now, the Indian spinners not at par with their counterparts of yore, it’s up to any good spinner of any visiting team to exploit the pitch for their teams better than the home spinners. Therefore, in a way, a Test match gets pre-determined by the toss—win it to win the match and vice versa. This also induces this writer to make an explosive statement: while nothing is wrong in making slow-turning pitches in here just like the way Australia or England or South Africa put up green turfs in their backyards, you cannot hope for your home team to win the toss every possible time; it makes you wonder if that was the case when they prepared the Ahmedabad pitch for the World Cup-2023 Final, hoping the home team to win the toss as they were consistent doing so during the tournament and then take the suitable call? If this speculation, howsoever ungrounded it may be, attract ire from some this writer would only welcome them to elucidate the issue further.

This writer agrees fully with England captain Ben Stokes on what he said after the last two consecutive defeats: he said the option of the ‘umpire’s call’ should be eliminated from the DRS rules. Rightly so, because the DRS has evolved to eliminate human mistakes and errors in judgement. Earlier there used to be ‘benefit of the doubt’ in LBW decisions expressed by the third umpires when the ball seemed to be just and only just touching the top or the sides of the off or the leg stumps and when it couldn’t be conclusively proved if the ball edged the bat or not. But now in such cases the DRS allows the ‘umpire’s call’, meaning if the umpire gave it Out originally then it has to be Out and vice versa, thus completely ignoring the ‘benefit of the doubt’ factor. If ‘err to human’ is true we cannot say the machines are bulletproof. Yes, like Ben said, ‘the umpire’s call’ should be taken out of the DRS and the entire decision should be left for the digital examination to decide, of course, if they could be convincing and conclusive. At the same time Ben Stokes was apparently benefiting today from the same clause he wanted removed!

A slight twist of good fortune for India at stumps today. Like the England seventh wicket partnership contributed more than 100 invaluable runs for the team with bowler Robinson notching up his highest Test score (58) in the company of Root from stumps yesterday to today morning session, the India seventh wicket partnership has so far contributed 42 runs as bowler Kuldeep Yadav is fighting it out with Jurel to end the day at 219/7, still trailing by 134 runs. The size of the lead to be conceded by India is very much going to decide the outcome of the match either in England’s or in India’s favor. However, should India crash to a defeat in the next two days, the behavior of this writer should not be labelled as ‘typical of an Indian supporter’, because during the next two or three days this writer happens to have some other engagement and may not be able to jot down the proceedings here, whoever wins or loses! Enjoy!

ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup-2023: India and New Zealand the Most Consistent Teams So Far!

The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup-2023 unfolding in India is not even halfway through as of today, and it’s impossible to say which of the contesting 10 teams are going to make it to the Top 4 in the knockout stage. And there’ve been huge upsets too in terms of the short-format World Champions England losing to Afghanistan and the ebullient South Africa, after they scored in excess of 400 runs against Sri Lanka, falling again to Netherlands. As we write this Pakistan and Australia fighting it out in a very important match for both of them: Pakistan, after making a rollicking start in the tournament, fell apart against India while Australia registered their first win against Afghanistan after three consecutive losses. Therefore, at the current juncture, we can hardly predict which teams are going to stage a fight-back or which teams are going to the top seamlessly, except perhaps for two teams: India and New Zealand. Both of them have won four out of four matches each so far—every win being resoundingly convincing. They are the most consistent teams and seem to be set to make it to the semifinals unless some resurgent teams happen to cause roadblocks for them or effect upset wins over them. In this context, the encounter between them on Sunday, the 22^nd of October 2023, should be the most awaited match of the tournament with exciting and curious prospects.

While New Zealand had defeated formidable rivals like England and Australia in their four matches, India defeated Pakistan and Australia among others. The opening pairs of both teams—Rohit-Gill for India and Conway-Ravindra for NZ— are being looked upon in awe by all rival teams. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli feature in the ten leading run-scorers of the tournament while Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra figure in the list for NZ. No doubt, the top orders for both teams are firing all cylinders so far except for the New Zealand top order capsizing in one of the matches against Afghanistan. After quite a long time, the India Top 4, namely Rohit, Gill, Virat and Rahul, have shown their grit and determination to consistently contribute in each match of the World Cup. Shreyas Iyer has also come in nicely in the order and been making solid contributions so far. There could be only one difference between the top two teams: the middle and lower orders of New Zealand have been tested successfully against Netherlands and Afghanistan; but in regard to India they’ve lost no more than four wickets in each of the four matches, mostly winning those matches hands down; and this factor may or may not figure in the later matches, particularly against NZ. And as per the latest information the injury of Hardik Pandya may cause quite a bit of unease in this regard.

The bowlers, in both the departments of pace and spin, are also doing great for both India and New Zealand. Mitchell Santner tops the list of bowlers with 11 wickets for NZ and India’s Jasprit Bumrah coming close second with 10 wickets so far.  The Indian bowlers, with the exception of Shardul Thakur, have been a revelation giving their team a manageable total to defend in each of the four matches. The peaking of spinner Kuldeep Yadav has happened at the right time while Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya have also been among wickets. The prospects ahead are really mouthwatering.

The ICC Men’s World Cup-2023, being played in the round robin format which was introduced in the 2019 Cup after a long break in since 1999, is allowing us to watch the 10 teams playing against each other at the 10 venues across the country. Out of the total of 48 matches to be played there’ll be 45 league matches in the round robin stage and then there’ll be the two semifinals (teams on positions 1&4 to play the first while no. 2&3 to play the second) to which the best four teams are to qualify on the basis of points and net run-rates and the Final to be played in Ahmedabad on Sunday, the 19^th November, 2023. India and New Zealand have been exchanging the top 1&2 positions on the basis of the net run-rates. South Africa and Pakistan are still in the top four positions, but depending on the performances of Australia, England, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan things may change quite fast.

I think the most positive factor about the tournament is that contrary to the oft-repeated phenomenon of the batting-second team winning almost all the time on the flat slow run-feast Indian pitches we’ve come to see both the toss-losing or batting-first teams winning quite a few of the matches. And there’ve been low-scoring matches too. The greatest thing is that the India pitches have been helping both pacers and spinners, without, of course, putting the batsmen at the bowlers’ mercy. Such high standards of competition and the glorious uncertainties of the game are seen to be playing on the minds of the team captains in choosing whether to bat or bowl first after winning the tosses. And of course, we are sorely missing the West Indies team, the king of unpredictability, in this World Cup as they lost out on the pre-qualifier matches.

(Note: Blogger is not allowing any single photo to be uploaded except in some odd files! Don't know why! Sorry! )