The second day in Visakhapatnam was one of harsh realities for England and, in particular, two of the novices in the side. Both Haseeb Hameed and Ben Duckett, while falling in wildly different ways, were the victims of misjudgment.
In the case of Hameed the mistake was someone else’s and after a debut in Rajkot that saw him record the highest international score by an English teenager and earn comparisons with some of the greats of the game, his experience was one of returning to earth with a bump.
Having seen the off-stump of his opening partner, Alastair Cook, explode in the third over of England’s reply to India’s 455, the 19-year-old displayed the temperament which has been much vaunted over the past week, carving out a stand of 47 with Joe Root that appeared to have settled any panic.
But if ever there was a reminder that the game can be a sod, here it was, with Hameed left stranded halfway down the pitch when Root changed his mind over a second run and as quick as you can say Wriddhiman Saha, the India wicketkeeper smartly effected the youngster’s dismissal.
Walking back to the dressing room with a slam of the bat against the turf and a face like thunder, Hameed was left as the unfortunate fall guy in a moment of chaos to rank among the worst of England’s self-inflicted implosions over the years.
While trans-Pennine relations may have suffered a temporary setback, the young Lancastrian may reflect that even the best in the world sometimes make a hash of it – a point Root went on to fully ram home with his own downfall when trying to blast his team out of a crisis and holing out for 53.
A different kind of education is being handed down to Duckett during this subcontinental winter, however, with his removal after tea, bowled neck and crop by Ravi Ashwin for five, one that was not exactly met with the collective dropping of jaws.
Like the ocean-faring days of the decommissioned submarine the INS Kursura, which proudly sits on the beach here on India’s north-east coast, something of a glitch in the left-hander’s defence has risen to the surface over the past six weeks, one that is being cruelly exposed by the alien pitches he is encountering.
For all the ball-striking ability that reaped over 2,700 runs last summer, Duckett’s stays at the crease have looked particularly temporary against the right-armers from around the wicket, with a leg or middle-and-leg line leaving his defence all at sea and showing the ruthlessness of bowlers at Test level.
Ashwin, one of the most cerebral cricketers going, would have studied the 22-year-old’s dismissal in Dhaka three weeks ago – castled by the teenager Mehedi Hasan when trapped on the back foot – and has since set about probing this apparent blind spot on the two occasions the pair have met during the series.
In Rajkot, during Duckett’s solitary innings on a surface most batsmen enjoyed, Ashwin teased an edge that was gobbled up at slip. Here in Visakhapatnam, where the pitch began showing the dark soil beneath from the first morning, the same man got one to drift in, fizz past the blade and clatter the stumps.
This was also Ashwin in his pomp, showing the kind of wizardry that has propelled him to the top of the Test bowling rankings and would have accounted for far greater players. But it also wrapped up a frantic 19-ball stay in which a jammed-down bat offered few assurances and twice saw the timber missed by inches.
A tour of India is the deepest of deep ends, however, and Duckett’s elevation to the Test side – one that saw him introduced as an opener before dropping down to No4 to replace the flatlining Gary Ballance – is already beginning to look too soon unless some rapid remedial work can be done between innings.
Much has been made of Hameed’s age but Duckett is little more than two years older and also making the greater leap, having played to date exclusively in the second division of the County Championship.
It is here where the management and selectors must ask themselves whether the right decision has been made in exposing a promising youngster with an obvious chink in the armour to the world’s best in their own backyard.
That Duckett has got this far despite not possessing the full set of defensive tools is credit to the talent he possesses, and such shortcomings can be addressed. Over the coming days and weeks a chat with a fellow left-hander, Ben Stokes, may be not be the worst idea either, given the all-rounder’s past vulnerability against the spinners in Asia and the subsequent hard work that is starting to bear fruit.
