Another moment of Yorkshire disharmony undermined England here, an innocent mistake that suddenly upset a day that seemed to be sailing along serenely.
Jonny Bairstow summoned Joe Root for an ambitious second run and England’s captain was left sprawling on the turf and staring at Aleem Dar’s upraised finger. From the tranquillity of 216 for three the hosts slumped to 285 for nine and have another Test struggle on their hands.
There do not appear to be too many demons in this pitch. Just as Yorkshiremen dominated the build-up to this Test so they did, rather more decorously, once the match began. Root and Bairstow scored most of the runs and were easily England’s most impressive batsmen. But one moment when sound judgment went awol, as Bairstow sought to torment a fielding side who appeared to be running out of options, dictated the course of the first day, which ultimately belonged to India.
At the start Root was all common sense, taking the option that would have been applauded in all of the Ridings after the coin had landed in his favour. There was high cloud up above and it subsequently emerged that that Virat Kohli favoured bowling but Root saw a dry brown pitch and did the obvious thing. India, like England, spurned the option of a second spinner and there may have been moments when Kohli regretted this, something that may apply to England later in the match.
One of them may have been the dismissal of Cook in Ravi Ashwin’s second over. Cook had settled easily and had produced one Goweresque flick off the hip but then he was bowled by a classical Ashwin off-break, which pitched on middle, turned and hit the top of off stump.
Keaton Jennings appeared unflustered by the departure of his senior partner. In fact Jennings looks the part, especially between deliveries; he is composed, neat and gives the impression that he belongs out there. Occasionally when the ball is propelled he appears stiff-limbed and mechanical but he soldiered on well into the afternoon session until he was bowled off the bottom edge for 42 by Mohammed Shami. This is the type of sluggish surface that often induces edges on to the stumps.
Dawid Malan was paid the compliment of a review by India when he was a long way down the track against Ashwin; it was wasted but the system could not quite reprieve him against Shami despite the presence of two orange lights. Doubts over Malan’s position at No 4 are on the increase. Given the absence of Ben Stokes at Lord’s, he probably has one innings and one Test match to alleviate those misgivings.
Throughout the 103-run alliance between Root and Bairstow batting seemed a breeze. The captain shunned all unnecessary risks; he waited for the ball to come to him before clipping it away on the leg side or opening the face and guiding it down to third man without suggesting that there was a scintilla of risk in the stroke. Bairstow was more belligerent and sometimes he went searching for the ball but he usually timed it sweetly.
Root is playing his 12th Test against India and by scoring 80 he enhanced his own record; in each one of those matches he has hit a half-century. He also registered his 6,000th Test run and no batsman has managed that as quickly in terms of days. One other Root statistic, rather more positive than his current inability to convert fifties into hundreds: in 43% of his Test innings he has reached 50, a higher ratio than anyone since Don Bradman.
His demise stemmed from Bairstow’s exuberance. This pair trust one another at the crease and they are quick; over the years they have stolen hundreds of runs but Bairstow was over-eager to humiliate. He summoned Root for a brash second and Kohli in the square-leg region picked up, threw off balance and hit the stumps; Bairstow had chosen the wrong man and, perhaps, the wrong team. CricViz observes that India, contrary to their old reputation, have conjured more run outs in Test cricket (18) in the past two years than any other team.
Those bonus run outs can galvanise the perpetrators and stun the victims. Soon Bairstow was bowled off the inside edge by Umar Yadav; then Jos Buttler, in his first outing as England’s vice-captain, was lbw to the second ball he received from Ashwin, a straight one he was trying to push to the on side.
Stokes, whose magic has been missing since his return even though he always looks technically sound, made a subdued 21 before flicking at a short ball from Ashwin off the back foot and spooning a catch straight back to the bowler. This is at least the third time he has been dismissed in this fashion against Indian spinners. If the ball had been white he might have smashed it to the boundary. Adil Rashid was lbw to Ishant Sharma on review and Stuart Broad was soon flummoxed by Ashwin, who, ominously, was India’s most effective bowler.
