England Chase Down A Record Total, Draw Test Series 2-2 Against India!

In a befitting climax to their incredible winning run of fourth-innings chases against New Zealand, clean sweeping the Series 3-0, England have successfully chased down a never-before total of 378 runs set by India to win the 5^th Test match against India in Birmingham today by 7 wickets. As in the previous chase in the third Test against New Zealand that England won by 7 wickets it’s none other than that rollicking duo of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow who has crafted a magical unbeaten partnership of 269 runs, in just about 54 overs, once again here to overcome the highest ever total in the fourth innings against any side in their Test cricket history. For that matter, India too had never before failed to defend a 350+ run target in a Test match. Root and Bairstow had been crucial in all of the test victories against New Zealand along with Ben Stokes, Overton and Ollie Pope giving company at times. Joe Root has notched up his third century in the four successful chases including this one, apart from other 50+ scores, and is declared the Player of the Series vs. India for having scored the highest individual runs (700+) in this five-match Series, beating the earlier record held by Virat Kohli. And of course, the hosts have the last laugh as far as the decision to field first is concerned, thanks to the positivity of Captain Stokes and new coach Brendon McCullum.

 

Jonny Bairstow has picked up his fourth ton in as many matches including two successive centuries in this match—his 106 glorious runs in the first innings that restricted India’s possible lead considerably and the match-winning 114 not out today. In both of his innings Bairstow has kept the scoreboard moving with a very healthy strike rate throughout, in a perfect display of controlled aggression. In hindsight, his dropped catch by Hanuma Vihari when he was only on 14 could emerge as the costliest lapse of the match on India’s part. Otherwise, the duo batted freely all along since last evening when they made the victory target look almost a formality for the fifth and the last day today, accomplishing the 378-run mammoth target in only the 77^th over and not allowing India to entertain any chance of having a date with the new ball.

 

For England the openers Lees and Crawley also contributed in the innings that mattered most, building up a 100+ partnership in quick time last afternoon with Lees being the aggressor and Crawley the patient anchor on the other side. There had been a somewhat flurry of wickets as England slid from 107 for no loss to 109/3; however, the Indian bowlers could not take advantage of the situation and the Root-Bairstow duo made the proceedings extremely one-sided, excruciatingly for the devout Indian fans out there on the stands of Birmingham and before television sets across India.

 

There’d hardly be any ifs and buts for India in this incredible display of batting prowess by the Englishmen. Had the Indian top order contributed many more runs, say 200 more, the English batsmen would’ve overhauled that too the way they went about batting, making a new record in World Test Cricket history perhaps. But the fact remains that except for Pujara in the second innings the Indian top order failed again. In a team without the services of their regular opener duo—KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma—the former Indian captain Virat Kohli was expected to fire at least in one of the innings; but the greatest cricketer of the modern times seems have forgotten the art of hitting tons or half-tons or even good useful knocks, entirely.

 

The other worrying factor is that the spirited Indian bowlers of the first innings failed to defend a huge total of 378 for the first time in its Test Cricket history; their bowling in the second innings looked pedestrian with not a single bowler making any mark on the English batsmen. The bowlers extracted more swing in England’s first innings, but failed entirely to do so in the second. In India’s second innings too England bowlers utilized the pitch very well where the ball seemed to be keeping low at times, and their solitary spinner Leach too bowled effectively to capture a wicket; whereas the Indian counterpart Ravindra Jadeja failed to make any impression. Captain Stokes captured all the last four Indian wickets in a terrific spell of intelligent bowling. Maybe the increasingly sunny weather completely dried up the moisture in the pitch and finally made it a haven for batting on the 4^th and 5^th day for the hosts. But, as we said, nothing really matters whey you’re treated with that kind of superlative batting.

 

Now, it’s over to the games in the shorter formats, the three-match ODI Series and the three-match T20I Series between the two teams with the first T20I scheduled on 7^th July 2022 and the ODI Series to start from July 12. 

India 1st Innings of 416 Vs England: An Innings to Remember for Top (Sans Order) Reasons!

The consistent failures of Indian top and middle batting order since a couple of years at least, barring perhaps a few solid starts of the now-missing Rahul-Rohit opener duo, have become a rule rather than an exception. In the successful Test Series against both Australia and England (so far) we’d seen how the lower middle order, necessarily involving an all-rounder like Ravindra Jadeja or Ravichandran Ashwin and at times even tailenders like Shardul Thakur or Mohammad Shami, coming to the rescue of the Indian innings and most often leading the team to victories. Not to speak about the tremendous bowling efforts of the same players in those magnificent victories. The final and the fifth ‘leftover’ Test match that started yesterday against England in Birmingham has become the latest example. Put into bat, the Indian top and middle order had ably managed to reduce the team to a precarious 98/5, almost giving up against James Anderson, Matthew Potts and Stuart Broad; but then, came the lower middle order with the wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant still standing and joined by the all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, the latter coming after a long injury break. And, the innings has become a memorable one thanks to them and other top reasons irrespective of whatever is the final result of the match, only on its second day today.

 

While Rishabh Pant kept on with his inimitable style of attacking ‘shorter format cricket’ his partner Ravindra Jadeja stood like a rock at the other end, providing a solid anchor to former’s aerobics. Barring Anderson the other English bowlers seemed to have suddenly lost the plot. Pant raced to this fifth Test century, the second in this Series, in just around 90 balls, and then spectacularly taking it forward to score 146 runs in just 111 balls with 19 fours and 4 sixes. His century has become the fastest test century by an Indian wicketkeeper-batsman beating the long-standing record of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The duo registered an incredible partnership of 222 runs, the highest sixth wicket partnership by India against England, with Pant falling to the bowling of Joe Root at the team score of 320/6 while Jadeja saw the day off with his score of 83 runs. The innings was still in the unfolding stage as Jadeja took over today from where he left and he too achieved the brilliant feat of a test century (104), his third Test century, before falling to Anderson at the team score of 375/9. Mohammad Shami also contributed a useful 16 before becoming the 8^th out at 371, giving Stuart Broad his only wicket.

 

And it was still not over yet. Captain Jasprit Bumrah had one more ‘top’ feat in store for the very-happy-by-now Indian fans. He turned Stuart Broad’s last over in the match into history, at times freakishly and at times looking like a solid batsman during the saga of only 6 balls that of course got extended due to wides and no-balls. Fours and sixes started raining; through the bat, wides and no-balls and through the over the top and leg byes. In all, 35 runs were scored off that over, and it became the most expensive over in the history of Test cricket. Bumrah remained not out at 31 runs with 4 fours and 2 sixes. The spectacle reminds cricket lovers of the 6 glorious sixes hit by Yuvraj Singh in 6 balls, of that same bowler Stuart Broad in T20 World Cup-2002. That historical Broad over saw India cross the 400-run mark. 416 was the final total put up on the board and it’s really an unbelievable recovery after losing the entire top half for 98 runs.

 

In hindsight, it seems to be a huge blunder on the part of England to choose bowling after winning the toss. The decision must’ve been influenced by the overcast conditions and perhaps also by the incredible chases by England in the last two Test victories against New Zealand. It has also exposed England’s inability to mop up India’s lower order that was also evident in the previous matches of the Series. James Anderson achieved a fifer, bowling consistently throughout; but the other pacers were lacking. Potts, after having the early breakthroughs, and Broad gave away too many runs between them. The solitary spinner Jack Leach was totally ineffective, conceding 71 runs in 9 overs, more in the T20 way.

 

The scoring rate has been keeping with that of the previous Tests played in England this summer. India scored at the rate of nearly 5 an over on both days barring the in-a-shell top order, ending with 416 in only 85 overs, despite the rain interruptions when an early lunch was taken and play extended yesterday. The Edgbaston pitch has been behaving as a good batting track, but with uneven bounce and at times the ball keeping low.  

 

Captain Bumrah has followed up his batsmanship with some effective fast bowling too in the England innings, capturing all the three wickets to fall so far (the openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope) with rain interruptions. Here we’d only mentioned the Indian innings for the reasons we cited. The match is far from over with almost four days still left. The duo of Joe Root and Bairstow can turn any match on its head on their day. We only hope the weather allows play for a result in this memorable match, and it’s always good to see the efficient handling of the pitch and the outfield and prompt extensions of play for the interruptions.

India Vs England 5th Test: England on a Roll, COVID-19 Rules Out Rohit!

It was the COVID-19 scare in the Indian camp that led to the postponement of the 5^thTest between India and England to be played in Manchester back in September, 2021; and it’s again COVID-19 that’s led to ruling out India captain Rohit Sharma of this Test which begins Friday, the 1^st of July 2022 at Edgbaston, Birmingham. Jasprit Bumrah, the existing Tests vice-captain is given the charge to lead India as the stand-in captain. The phenomenon of a ‘stand-in captain’ for Team India has become the rule rather than an exception in recent times, at times leading to double stand-ins. Anyway, the debutant captain Bumrah thus becomes only the second pacer, after Kapil Dev, to captain India in tests. In the absence of both the regular openers, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma, the flown-in Mayank Agarwal is likely to join opener Shubman Gill.

 

There are significant changes that have taken place in the past 9 months. England has now a new captain Ben Stokes, one of the most successful all-rounders in world cricket. And under his aggressive and positive leadership England team is thriving at the moment, only recently clean sweeping a Test Series against New Zealand 3-0 with each match being high-scoring ones and English batsmen, namely former captain Joe Root and a blazing Jonny Bairstow, helping the team win even under extreme pressure to score runs like in the shorter formats. The newfound aggression is enhanced further by the new coach Brendon McCullum, incidentally an attacking batsman playing for New Zealand in the paste. On the other hand, the Indian batting stalwarts have hardly played in the recent months except for the IPL-2022; and most of them having come out of the ‘rested’ period. Why Rohit should get COVID-19 infection even after a full post-IPL rest is something nobody could have an answer about.  

 

But even otherwise, in Rohit India too had a new captain as against Virat Kohli who led India to take a lead of 2-1 in the five-match Test Series. Cheteshwar Pujara has made it back to the team thanks to scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket and is likely to be the No.3 mainstay for India while Ajinkya Rahane is left out. Apart from Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, all-rounder Hanuma Vihari could be considered in the playing eleven. Depending on the normally spin-friendly Edgbaston pitch there could four or threesome pace attack led by Bumrah and Shami, and one or two of the three other pacers, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Siraj, and accordingly both of the spinners, Ashwin and Jadeja, or one of them could be considered.

 

It’d be interesting to see how the Indian batting mainstay is going to face the English pace-battery of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes among others, and also how the in-form English batsmen would counter the Indian pace and spin attack in their home turf. The role of the all-rounders should be crucial for both teams when it matters. The match should be absorbing by all means. India cannot lose the Series and will put everything to win it while England will try all possible means to draw the Series.