After suffering a first defeat by Bangladesh and the horror show of a 10-wicket collapse inside a session that brought it about England went into the first day of their five-Test series with India as a team who could ill-afford any more dents to their confidence in the opening exchanges. With no warm-up games scheduled – a mistake unlikely to be repeated – only net practice and team talks came before the most daunting of away series. They needed a few things to go their way in Rajkot to establish an early foothold.
Chiefly this came at the toss, with Alastair Cook given first dibs on a pitch that contained few of the gremlins witnessed during their 1-1 draw with the world’s ninth-ranked side. There was fortune beyond the flick of a coin too, with India spilling catches in the morning and one of their two seamers, Mohammed Shami, suffering bouts of cramp to the back of his right leg. But even when factoring in those few sliding doors moments and Shami’s dicky hammy, the situation still needed application from England’s batsmen if the demons from Dhaka were to be silenced.
They could easily have resurfaced when England went into lunch on 102 for three with Ben Duckett following Haseeb Hameed into Ravi Ashwin’s bulging swag bag of Test victims. But through Joe Root and Moeen Ali’s stand of 179 that extolled the virtues of strike-rotation in this part of the world, England gave themselves the perfect platform – 311 for four – from which an early surprise victory could possibly be plotted.
While Root is well established as one of the world’s leading batsmen – notwithstanding the fact that his masterful 124 was only his third century away from home and a first in Asia – Moeen is one starting to blossom fully at international level. It is no coincidence that when he has been played in the top seven in 2016, he has averaged 68 with the bat, finishing the day one run short of what would be a third Test hundred during this period of extra responsibility.
The pair are part of what is the middle tier of England’s setup in terms of experience and one that will eventually inherit the side fully when Cook, Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson move on; along with Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes they are the ever-swelling ballast of a side already looking to the next generation with such as Duckett, Hameed and Zafar Ansari.
Of those towards the more fresh-faced end of the spectrum, it was Hameed who shone brightest on his debut. There is a danger in going too far when praising a score of 31 but through positive footwork, a technically solid defence and a couple of Root-esque cover drives, the step up to Test cricket does not appear too soon for this 19-year-old (much as those who have watched him for Lancashire this year expected).
Another making the jump to Test level was the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium itself, an out-of-town bowl built in 2009 which has previously met its 28,000 capacity in limited overs internationals and yet, despite being covered in giant banners declaring the historic nature of the fixture, barely a third full for most of the day despite around 2,000 local schoolchildren being bussed in.
Those who stayed away missed Root end what has become something of a drought in recent times, with the previous Test century by a visiting batsman in India coming when Michael Clarke gave Australia a brief moment of cheer during the 4-0 whitewash in early 2013 (a tour remembered for his side’s schoolboy problems with handing in homework).
During this period some 15 have been compiled by Indian batsmen, a glut that, along with a cascade of wickets for their off-spinning magician, Ashwin, fed into a run of 12 victories in 13 Tests, propelled Virat Kohli’s side to their current No1 ranking and had them tipped to make short work of a team that played the Bangladeshi spinners so poorly.
Confidence is high in the country, such that Kohli was asked before the match for his predicted day of victory. His smart reply was that cricket is not boxing and combatants do not predict when a knockout blow will be landed, which was just as well given an opening round in which four chances went down amid a generally sloppy performance in the field.
India have been too good recently to consider it more than a blip at this stage and Kohli is not the type of captain to allow one poor showing to become a trend. And South Africa’s stunning fightback to beat Australia in Perth earlier this week served as a reminder that a one-sided opening day need not define a Test match.
