In front of a surprisingly large crowd of around 500, who were allowed free entry, it took 17 balls and a cunning leg-break from Ravichandran Ashwin to polish off the England innings and give India a resounding victory by 203 runs in the third Test.
The two sides shook hands and packed their bags eager for a few days’ respite before Joe Root and Virat Kohli toss up again at the Ageas Bowl on 30 August. The series is alive and Indian confidence is restored, though Root was right to point out amid the doom-mongering about the fragility of his side’s batting that England are currently 2-1 up in a series against the side deemed to be the best in the world in the ICC rankings.
The Test team is not in freefall but they remain, most definitely, a work in progress. Improvements and changes are needed and the task facing Ed Smith and his selectors before the next Test is not entirely straightforward. However Smith likes a puzzle, intellectual or otherwise, and so far this summer he has been coming up with some intriguing solutions.
In fact selecting the squad for Southampton will not be the difficult bit; choosing the final XI will. So there is the opportunity for Smith and James Taylor to do some buck-passing. They can present Trevor Bayliss and Root with every possible option and then leave them to it at the Ageas Bowl.
In essence the panel has one major decision to make and it relates to the opening pair. Are they prepared to change it again? If they are – and the figures suggest this might be a good idea – does Alastair Cook or Keaton Jennings go? Almost certainly the answer would be Jennings. A nasty pattern has emerged among the batsmen recently tried by England. As they lose confidence amid the greater intensity of Test cricket they start dropping catches. This happened to James Vince, Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan; now this problem seems to be afflicting Jennings as well – though Cook is not without blemishes in this department either.
The next opener on the rank is Surrey’s Rory Burns, an ungainly but effective left-hander. His left-handedness does not help because Ishant Sharma relishes bowling to this type of batsman but where are the right-handed openers? If the selectors are in proactive mood, and there are signs that this how Smith prefers to operate, then Burns may be drafted in for Jennings. However one should banish any notion that Cook has earned the right to choose the timing of his departure. That should not be the case. Of course the selectors are entitled to drop him, even though this has never happened in his 12-year Test career.
There may well be an old-fashioned feel to the selectors’ deliberations. They will meet at an extraordinary time, namely when there is actually some first-class cricket going on in the shires. So there is the rare possibility of picking players who are in peak form against a red ball. In fact Moeen Ali, who has just produced a herculean performance at Scarborough while captaining Worcestershire to victory – a double century and eight wickets in the match against Yorkshire – was already in the Test squad for Trent Bridge; so too was Sam Curran.
Both will remain options for the fourth Test but the selectors will probably need to pick a replacement for Jonny Bairstow, who would be a batsman. Even if Bairstow is eager to play as a specialist batsman in the next Test, which would be a rare occurrence, it is a bad policy to start a game with a player who is only 80% fit, no matter who he is. If it is decided that he is properly fit, how about considering him as an opening batsman?
That is unlikely to happen. So pursuing the principle of studying the form and the imminent venue then the name of James Vince surfaces immediately, even though such a reversion might prompt some grimaces. Vince has had an excellent season; he has just scored 74 and 147 against Nottinghamshire at the Ageas Bowl. Like Moeen, he is on the crest of a wave. Modern panels like to stick to patterns of selection rather than be too easily swayed by current form but in this instance the impetus to play Moeen in the team and to include Vince in the squad seems irresistible.
So there are almost a bewildering number of options available to Bayliss and Root at the Ageas Bowl, even after assuming that the inclusion of Essex’s Jamie Porter is no longer necessary. England could play Moeen with Adil Rashid or instead of him. If Vince was recalled, perhaps Root could revert to No 4 and Ollie Pope might drop down the order – or even out of the team. Could Stuart Broad, to use the politest of terms, be rotated, with Curran coming back into the side? Too many changes suggest instability, but that may simply be a reflection of where this team currently sits.
To arrest panic let me borrow yet another statistic from Test Match Special’s scorer, Andrew Samson, about changes to Test teams. Between 1931 and 1948 England did not play the same side once in consecutive Test matches (there were 74 of them in that period). Feel better now?
