This may be a match for old men. On Friday Alastair Cook held a flaky England innings together; on Saturday with the match drifting along, Jimmy Anderson, in harness with an exasperated Stuart Broad, returned for a second spell that suddenly caused torment among the Indian batsmen as they responded to England’s total of 332.
Upon Anderson’s recall India were 94 for two and progressing easily enough after the early loss of Shikhar Dhawan, lbw to Broad’s first delivery, and the departure of KL Rahul to a trimmer from Sam Curran. Virat Kohli was at the crease, which sharpened everyone’s attention, and runs were coming smoothly.
So Joe Root turned to his senior citizens. Anderson has yet to dismiss Kohli in this series, though they have had some titanic duels that could be edited into a masterclass for batsmen and bowlers. He was brought back specifically for the Indian captain and soon the ball thudded into Kohli’s left pad. Anderson appealed with all his might but the umpire Kumar Dharmasena was unmoved. England reviewed immediately to discover that although this delivery would have demolished the stumps there was an orange on the big screen shedding doubt over whether the ball had hit Kohli’s leg in line. As ever the next ball, a rare leg side delivery from Anderson, was glanced for four.
Anderson soon recovered his control and did the second-best thing on his agenda. Still he could not remove Kohli but he did manage to dispatch Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane in consecutive overs with two fine deliveries, both of which found the outside edge of the bat. The dismissal of Pujara meant that Anderson had taken more Test wickets against India than anyone else, a fine achievement but not his main objective on Saturday – he wanted Kohli. Now England were in the ascendancy. Now came the exasperation for Broad against India’s debutant, Hanuma Vihari. The ball swung into his pad but Broad’s celebratory appeal was rejected by the umpire Joel Wilson. England declined to review this time, no doubt conscious that Kohli was still at the crease so they needed as much ammunition in their arsenal as possible. It transpired that this delivery satisfied all the criteria so we had the rare occurrence of Broad not reviewing when he should have done.
Soon after, with Vihari still yet to score, the umpire’s finger went up but Broad was only mildly jubilant since the subsequent review demonstrated that the ball was going over the stumps. So in a fraught start to his Test career Vihari survived and before long he top-edged a six off Ben Stokes. The he sliced another delivery in that direction just short of Adil Rashid. He had gone from fraught to frenetic in a couple of overs. It was not hard to distinguish him from his captain as Kohli unfurled some masterful strokes especially against Curran.
Then came the wicket that really counts and Stokes took it. Kohli, on 49, pushed hard in a manner that he would not do against Anderson, and Root at second slip deftly held the catch. Just before the close Rishabh Pant edged to slip. Now England held most of the best cards.
That final session was so much more compelling than the first two, when the cricket often lacked fizz, which was also the pattern on the first day. Perhaps we have been spoilt. There have been plenty of fireworks (metaphorical ones that you do not have to pay for) in the first four Tests but here for long periods the crowd sat patiently craving some drama. But then the sun started to dip and the ball moved more deviously, which hardly surprises the old timers around Kennington: “Red Duke at night, bowlers’ delight. Red Duke in the morning and the cricket is boring.”
The upshot is that after two days India are 158 runs behind with four wickets remaining. It was a bonus for England that they scored so many given that they started the day on 198 for seven, yet with Jos Buttler at the helm this did not seem too much of a problem. Rashid flickered briefly until he was lbw to the ever-willing Jasprit Bumrah and then Broad, playing his longest innings for England since the Melbourne Test last Christmas, kept Buttler company for 98 minutes and 98 runs. With a deep-set field they picked up those runs easily with Buttler feeling no need to protect his partner.
It was only after Broad was brilliantly caught by Rahul running back from mid-off that Buttler tried any extravagances. He hit Bumrah for two sixes in an over, the first out of the middle of the bat into the OCS Stand, the second, with a hint of a top edge, threatened to disturb the tranquillity of a former foreign secretary who was reclining in the VIP seats (obviously).
Buttler was finally caught at slip off Ravindra Jadeja for 89, another calm innings that cements his return to the Test team. There has been so much tinkering with the order lately that one hesitates to suggest more change. However, it now feels inappropriate for Buttler, the specialist batsman, to be coming in at seven. After all the shenanigans of this summer, maybe when they get to Sri Lanka they should simply revert to the formula that has the keeper, whoever he is, at seven.
