England Vs India: Into The Fourth Test Indian Batting Yet To Click!

The incredible Lord’s victory in the second Test that gave India 1-0 lead in the five-match Test Series against England notwithstanding, the much talked-about Indian batting depth has not delivered till the second day of the Fourth Test. It’s essentially the absolute failure of the middle order batsmen that let the great Indian fast bowling performances down, again and again. The non-performing and inconsistent batsmen are easily identified as the captain Virat Kohli himself who has managed to register just two fifties so far which were in the second innings of the third Test and on the first day of the fourth test, and giving him company in this discomfiture are Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. Ironically, the Indian bowlers are forced to bat well too to give India some kind of respectability, again and again.

 

In the first Test India lost a huge opportunity of winning after Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami devastated England for a mere 183 in the first innings as despite the good start provided by the Indian openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul the middle order failed to maintain the momentum depriving the team of taking a lead of at least 150 runs, and it was the spinner Ravindra Jadeja who hit a half-century and 28 by never-known-to-be-a-batsman Bumrah to ensure a lead of just 95 runs with the team all-out for 278. Ollie Robinson and veteran James Anderson uprooted the Indian batting. Thanks to the ever-consistent England skipper Joe Root (109 runs) his team made 303 runs in the second innings setting India a target of 209 runs which could still have been overhauled had the rains not washed away the fifth day’s play. But the point is if the Indian middle order delivered the visitors could have sealed the match before the rains came down. India were sitting pretty at 51/1 at the end of the fourth day with the match heading for an exciting finish, and in the England second innings Bumrah and Shami again captured most of the wickets.

 

In the second Test the hosts were with a big chance of win after they overhauled India’s highest total of the Series 364 (126 by KL Rahul, 83 by Rohit, 42 by Kohli, 40 by spinner Jadeja and 37 by Pant, his highest so far), making 391 thanks to a magnificent 180 by Joe Root (57 by Bairstow and 49 by Rory Burns) and having India reeling at 175/6 in the second innings. But then came the rollicking partnership between Shami (56) and Bumrah (34) after a useful 16 by Ishant Sharma, and India declaring at 298/8 set a stiff target of 272 runs to win for England on the last day. And that incredible win by 151 runs came in the dying moments of the match with Mohammed Siraj taking 4 scalps, Bumrah 3 and Shami 1 and England getting all-out for 120 runs. The heroes of the match clearly are Shami and Bumrah both in batting and bowling and Siraj, except for a good partnership between Pujara (45) and Rahane (61, his solitary half-century) in the Indian second innings.

 

After that incredible win Team India got all out for one of their lowest first innings totals of 78 after being put into bat by an aggressive England in the third Test at Headingley. It was all over for India in the very first day of the match and had to face the humiliation of an innings defeat. England took full advantage of India’s 78 by hauling up a huge total of 432 thanks to the third century by Joe Root (121), 70 by David Malan and the new opening pair Burns-Hameed giving an opening partnership of 135 runs. In India’s second innings Rohit made 59, Pujara 91 and Kohli making his first half-century at 55, but nobody could stick on to avoid an innings defeat. England levelled the Series at 1-1 now.

 

In the fourth Test at the Oval India, being put into bat, displayed another dismal batting failure folding up for 191 with Kohli’s second half-century and 57 by fast bowler Shardul Thakur who replaced an unfit Shami, and only the latter performance could only lend some respectability to the Indian total. England started badly losing early wickets and Root not performing well for the first time, but Ollie Pope making 81, Bairshow 37 and Moeen Ali making 35 stabilized the innings somewhat managing to ensure a lead, and the hosts were finally all out for 290 building up a significant lead of 99 runs till the last reports came in. This match too is more or less evenly poised at the moment, slightly favoring England. But everything depends how India bat in the second innings, first to clear the deficit of 99 without losing wickets. Unfortunately, class opener KL Rahul who managed to make it only after team management ran out of options nearly gave up his class after the second Test.

 

England has been making smart moves all the time with new replacements both in batting and bowling, and every time a new fast bowler was introduced the Indian batting faltered invariably. India must get its middle order in action immediately if they still entertain any hope of winning the Series, being the Australia-beaters in Australia just a little time before. However, that time Rahane led the team wonderfully well as Kohli went home for the birth of his first child. in this fourth Test India is sorely missing the services of Mohammed Shami, although his replacement Umesh Yadav got into the wickets. Kohli’s tactic of keeping Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s best spinner at the moment, consistently out of all the matches, particularly at the somewhat spinning track at Headingley, Leeds.

Of Moods Various…!

Mood changes or mood swings affect every living being of the world including animals and in some cases lifeless objects too. The latter assertion may surprise many, but there are numerous instances in this regard that will be taken up as we rather moodily move along. At the very start of this month, that is August 2021, I lost my mood to write anything and everything—that is to say my mood changed—and I don’t know why. There are, as everyone knows, numerous possible reasons for this: one may feel lazy and pass time in reading rather than writing that demands more application and concentration; one may feel depressed for no reason; one may be disturbed due to happenings that relate to other people or external factors; one may be ill or under particular medicines with side effects and in the case of illness there is a vicious circle of physical illness leading to mental illness and then both affecting one another as it goes on; hormone imbalances which are a bit serious causing mood swings and other problems. Anger is always a common factor for mood-change for all—humans or animals.

 

I didn’t even have the mood to ponder upon what exactly caused my mood-change, and I thought that to understand this complex syndrome of human moods I’d need to embark upon a Freudian analysis for which I had less knowledge and lesser expertise. So I gave up and stopped writing though there were too many things happening in my country and in the world, and of course my original pieces. Thus far we have given some indication of how complex the process of mood-change is and some of the countless reasons for the same, in the case of only humans or basically their minds. Now we can talk a bit about the animals that don’t possess brains to change their moods as often as humans, but have accurate instincts that mostly drive them differentially under different circumstances.

 

As far as wild animals in actual wilderness is concerned I have no direct experience, and only know that the basic instinct of hunger drives them all—the carnivorous goes on hunting to appease their hunger and the herbivorous goes on searching for green and greener pastures. When the tigers or the lions are fully satiated with enough food in the bellies they don’t bother if herds of deer and wild buffalos graze near them, and the latter also understand that at the moment they’d not be chased and hunted. Drinking water is as crucially important for animals as for humans, and therefore, when all types of animals drink from the stream nobody attacks anybody in an instinctive bond of mutuality. All these examples are related to various moods only, but driven by instinct in their cases.

 

Of the domesticated animals dogs are the most astonishing and wonderful variety—they show their moods freely on all occasions. When a tragedy strikes the family that has a pet dog, the latter feels it too and refuses to eat sitting quietly and sadly outside. There are true cases when a dog actually dies out of fasting after the death of his/her beloved master. Such mood changes occur to the cats also, but to a lesser extent. We find cases when the head cat leaves the house after tragedy or death strikes the family. Domesticated elephants also display various moods from terrible anger to supreme peace, but their mood changes are basically related to human force.

 

I mentioned about even lifeless objects having moodiness. Well, when you buy an electronic device you naturally ask the seller how it is going to perform and if it’ll go out of order frequently. I’ve myself heard several sellers saying, “The performance record is very good, but you can never be sure about problems. You know, electronic systems also have their moods, they can be real moody sometimes and you may have to call the service centre!”

 

After more than a fortnight during which I did my necessary activities on my smartphone I needed the laptop for some serious transactions. And my Goodness! It started, but immediately displayed an unstoppable trembling of the screen including the icons on the desktop. When somehow I managed to open the browser and the site I needed and attempted to type something the curser flew to the right or down continuously, not allowing me to type more than a single world in one go. The next day it totally denied me the pleasure of typing –the flickering stopped no doubt, but the keyboard refused obstinately to oblige me.

 

I understood, as it were. My laptop has been so used to my regular writing that when my mood made me inactive it was shaking with rage avenging. I called the engineer who diagnosed the problem without, of course, saying anything about mood-change. Although he promised to bring it back ready in two days it so happened that five days passed during which I started feeling the urge to start writing—the mood-change again—and this time I had to suffer because of the delay in repairing. The day the engineer finally handed over it to me ready and in good mood, I started writing immediately about something that has been in my mind for a long time in this month of inaction. However, the main reason was just to please the laptop, to keep it in a better mood hereafter!

Politics And Sports In The Time Of Pandemic!

It was cruelly insensitive on the part of the Government of India to declare in Parliament that there had been no COVID-19 deaths during the second wave due to lack of medical oxygen in the country, when not only the thousands of the affected families but also millions other anxious or someway related families just cannot erase the nightmarish images of people dying gasping for breath on hospital beds, in the hospital passages/corridors/lounges, on the outside courtyards or on the streets, in the parked cars, within the four walls of homes; hospitals sending SOS for oxygen, desperate doctors even breaking down; and round-the-clock media reports and most disturbing visuals.

 

The reason given by the government is even more ludicrously insensitive: that the states did not report the deaths due to the lack of medical oxygen. Well, most of the states, particularly the ones ruled by the same dispensations would hardly advertise their failure or the stark lack of preparedness. The government is talking about the worst affected state of Maharashtra that too did not audit oxygen-related fatalities; the ruling party should know that it is the only state in the country that was adequately prepared with enough stocks of all requirements including medical oxygen cylinders. Instead, why don’t they talk about Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh or Karnataka? If they think this is some kind of image-building then they should rethink and concentrate on damage-control, because apart from being cruelly insensitive this act represents the lowest low of politics.

 

The Government of the union territory Delhi has made a most horrible claim: they constituted a  panel to audit oxygen-related deaths, but was disallowed by the all-powerful Lieutenant Governor to go ahead. Besides, what about the highest-level meets discussing desperate measures to streamline the supply of 02 or somehow increase its production, sanctioning setting up of numerous oxygen plants even within hospital complexes and to receive plane-loads of oxygen concentrators by several foreign countries including the UK and the US? Were all these sham? On the top of it, the denials about shortage of vaccines and the gross under-reporting of COVID-related deaths continue unabated. Normally insensitive people are compared with having rhino-like thick skin; however, on this inhumane count even the rhinos would turn their backs on them most disdainfully.

 

If  COVID-19 infections were not enough Israel’s NSO-Pegasus spyware, the legacy of 2019, has arisen again to re-infect the mobiles of a whole lot of journalists, activists, opposition political leaders and even existing ministers of the central government. While the NSO has been maintaining that it sells the spyware only to governments, the Government of India has not been giving convincing replies or arguments, and this is accentuated by the fact that there are many other governments in the federal union of India. Therefore, this is some politics or mystery that many never see the light of day unless the NSO closely inspects clients’ misuse and it finally destroys the software itself as somewhat indicated by them lately. The spyware is extremely difficult to detect and only it can self-destroy its traces within the mobile phones if it so desires.

 

In the sports arena all the matches of either football or cricket or tennis were played with no or limited-capacity crowds. Only the Euro Cup-2020, postponed last year, created quite a lot of excitement allowing crowds increase gradually to reach 60,000 or 75% of the capacity at the Wembley stadium, England from the semi-final stage while COVID-19 cases of the Delta variety increased by leaps and bounds on a daily basis there. The hosts England was much expected to win the Cup once they reached the finals creating history, but Italy’s penalty-shots victory generated a racial abuse at the stadium marring the reputation of the tournament. Meanwhile, England lifted all COVID restrictions and decided to coexist with virus, because with most of the citizens fully vaccinated hospitalization and fatality rates have been almost eliminated. Although this seems to be a practical solution, God forbid, it is fraught with dangers as more lethal variants can achieve vaccine-escape or immunity-breakthrough anytime.

 

The Indian cricket board (BCCI) has proved its insensitivity to the pandemic dangers time and again. Of course, it had to participate in the World Test Championship Final between India and New Zealand in Southampton, England during June 18-23, 2021 with very limited crowds, and India lost that match due to colossal batting failure, all the euphoria it created when India qualified defeating England in the home series before the deadly second wave (then the BCCI had to suspend the IPL-2021 midway). However, the Indian team continued to stay in England to play a five-match Test Series against England starting August 2021, while COVID had infected a few members of staff including the most-favored Rishabh Pant. So much was the urge to get on with game that a second Team India was created under the captaincy of Shikhar Dhawan to take on Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, and the visitors have already sealed the three-ODI series leading 2-0.

 

And finally, the Tokyo Olympics, postponed since 2020, is starting tomorrow, the 23^rdof July 2021 as quite a few athletes have already been infected and some of them ruled out which is very unfair as it deprives them of achieving medals. The World Health Organization has warned that infections are bound to increase as the Games goes on. We don’t see any reason why the biggest tournament of the world having all the countries on board should be held at this juncture. How many of a COVID-ravaged India with the Third Wave feared to hit at any moment would have the spirit to celebrate the possible medal winners, except of course, the hordes of insensitive Covidiots or clones?           

 

But of course, as sports enthusiasts and optimists we do wish all success for the Games, the Indian contingent and all the participating athletes, and fervently hope that more waves of the pandemic are effectively prevented everywhere on planet earth.