England tiptoed on to the most genteel patch of cricketing turf in India for their first practice on the second leg of their tour. The training session at the Brabourne Stadium, the home of the Cricket Club of India was, theoretically, optional but everyone attended.
It was meant to last two and a half hours, but, having completed all that was required, a group decision to practise some more was reached. And so they did. While we can quibble about the quality of some of England’s play on the tour, there can be no complaints about their commitment.
The setting will not be so tranquil from Monday onwards when England will be practising in Rajkot before the first Test starts there on Wednesday. But here all was decorous. On the outfield next to the nets there was even a portable green cubicle, sadly underused by the England players, with a sign delicately painted upon it saying: “Please change here”. This was old India, where the players might be requested to put on their thigh pads out of sight of passers-by.
A few old members, who might have attended England’s last Test on this ground – in 1973, when Tony Lewis was captain – took their daily exercise, perambulating briskly around the outfield, bemused rather than perplexed when England began their session with the routinely raucous game of football. Inside the pavilion the helicopter fans rotated gently to augment a zephyr of a breeze coming in from the Arabian Sea and there was a chance to glimpse faded, grey photos of Bedi and Chandrasekhar, Prasanna and Venkat, as well as Colin and Tom, Alec and Geoffrey.
Outside there were possible portents of things to come. Was it relevant that Gary Ballance was not among the group of six batsmen who started in the nets? Instead he sat under an umbrella out of the sun, chatting to Trevor Bayliss and Ben Stokes. Meanwhile, the quicks, though not required to bowl, were put through their paces by the trainers and it was noticeable that Stokes was not among them. Clearly his energies must be preserved at all costs; he would do more than bat. The new chairman of Durham would have been impressed that Stokes was able to have an officially sanctioned light load at practice, something that Sir Ian Botham often had to achieve by his own devices all those years ago.
The emphasis was upon batting against spin and several locals of all shapes and sizes had been summoned up alongside Moeen Ali, Gareth Batty, Zafar Ansari and Adil Rashid, only one of whom – Moeen – is guaranteed to play in the Rajkot Test. They all bowled under the watchful eye of Saqlain Mushtaq, one-third of the latest influx of coaches now Paul Farbrace and Bruce French, the wicketkeeping coach, are here as well.
Joe Root knows the score. He is one of three batsmen to have played a Test in India before (Alastair Cook and Jonny Bairstow being the others). Four years ago on a startlingly successful tour, Root was the novice rather brilliantly selected for his debut Test in the final game in Nagpur, a draw that secured an away series win. Now he is England’s vice-captain and, like Cook, a source of wisdom to the others, who must be wondering what is in store for them over the next seven weeks – though it appears likely that Rohit Sharma, the India opening batsman, will now miss the entire series.
“It’s gone so quickly,” said Root after England’s prolonged session. “Yet paradoxically it seems a long time ago. I’ve done a lot of growing up since. There have been a lot of personnel changes in the dressing room. That was a fantastic tour, a really enjoyable one and it would be great to emulate that now.”
The challenges have not changed much in four years even if the England team has, except that Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are better bowlers now. “We respect them,” said Root. “But we must not fear them.”
Once again England must learn to combat spin bowling. “Over the next couple of days we’re going to have to work really hard on making sure we have the methods to play spin well, to score well against it and to have an adequate defence,” said the old soldier Root. “The way the guys practised today was a good start leading into this tour.”
The batsmen have to learn to think on their feet and trust their own methods. There is no right answer as Ben Duckett and Cook demonstrated in their century opening partnership in Dhaka. “You never know what the surface is going to be like in Rajkot,” said Root. “It might be similar [to Bangladesh]. It might be completely different. It might be flat for the first few days, then that skill of playing on a turning wicket comes in down the line.”
No one knows for certain how the pitch will play in Rajkot, which hosts its first Test match, but everyone from the old boys at the Brabourne stopping for a fresh lime soda after their walk to the wide-eyed Haseeb Hameed potentially taking guard there for the first time, will be amazed if there is a blade of green grass visible when the series gets under way on Wednesday.
