Inherent in England’s approach under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum has been a degree of acceptable wastage, but on the middle day of the middle Test in this five-match epic it tipped into the realms of the UK’s water companies.
As they hopped on to the team bus at 7.45am, the diem was there to be carpe’d. Ravichandran Ashwin was out of the match due to a family emergency at home, overnight chatter about a possible substitution silenced by the cold, hard reality of the ICC playing conditions. And through Ben Duckett’s sublime unbeaten century the evening before, 207 for two, in reply to India’s 445, was a stage on which to sparkle.
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And yet five hours later, just 36.1 overs deeper into the contest, Jimmy Anderson was trudging off to the dressing room to grab a shoe horn and his bowling boots. The 41-year-old was last man out in a collapse to 319 all out, stumps lit up by Mohammed Siraj but also the victim of the broader trade-off. By the close India had reached 196 for two, a lead of 322, to cap off the most disappointing day of the Stokes era.
Not that this wasn’t a hugely characterful showing from Rohit Sharma’s depleted side. Kuldeep Yadav was magical before lunch, the left-arm wrist-spinner sending down 12 overs, two for 35 in which he varied his pace, deployed the wrong ’un judiciously and, ultimately, stepped up to fill the void left by Ashwin. Siraj was also at his chilli pepper best when later flushing out England’s lower order to finish with four wickets.
Then there was the latest humdinger from Yashasvi Jaiswal, following scores of 80 in the first Test and 209 in the second with a 133-ball 104 that was supported by Shubman Gill’s more watchful 65 not out. Built like a middleweight boxer, India’s southpaw opener had rained down blow after blow on England’s weary bowlers, some nine fours and five sixes only halted when back spasms forced him to retire hurt.
English minds were still stewing on a ruinous batting performance earlier in the piece, one which echoed last year’s second Ashes Test at Lord’s and not just courtesy of the Aardman Animations mouth of a media centre at one end. Back then, 184 for one in reply to Australia’s 416 when Nathan Lyon hobbled off the field and out of the series, they crumbled to 325 all out in a flurry of hook shots. This time, Ashwin having jetted back to Chennai, only the method of dismissals differed.
Which is where the downside of England’s elan these past two years crops up. Take Joe Root, a subcontinental specialist who has found himself in a funk, something deepened in the fifth over of the day when he whipped out the reverse scoop to Jasprit Bumrah on 18 and sent the ball flying to third slip. It was a fine catch by Jaiswal, his hand-eye coordination given an early tune-up, but also a replica of Root’s dismissal to Neil Wagner in Mount Maunganui a year and one day ago.
Root was unrepentant at the time, horse-whispered by McCullum that night, and deployed the shot in an unbeaten 153 in Wellington the following week. From 22 attempts against seamers in the last two years, his party trick has returned 60 runs and scattered slips. And yet for all the talk of execution, or of folks not being able to cheer its success and also lament the two failures, it was still hard to describe it as a percentage play given the situation and the angle of India’s spearhead.
This was the first of two wickets in the space of 10 balls as Jonny Bairstow suffered a record eighth duck in India, overtaking a string of tailenders in the process. Kuldeep was the executioner, his mark playing back to a full ball that spun sharply into the pads. Duckett, rhyming with Bairstow’s mutterings, was then soon following him. The opener’s 153 from 151 – still the innings of his life – was ended when chasing a rare wide long-hop from Kuldeep that was toe-ended to cover.
Duckett probably wished he had thrown more at it – he doesn’t leave, after all – but this accusation could not be levelled at Stokes. From 260 for five, he and Ben Foakes doused some of the flames in a stand of 39 before lunch only to depart in the space of two balls. Replacing Kuldeep, Ravindra Jadeja profited from Stokes mistiming an attempt to clear the mid-wicket on 41 and picking out the one man on the rope. Foakes immediately chipped Siraj to mid-on when a rare ball possibly stuck in the surface.
Thereafter the tail disintegrated, Siraj plunging his opposite numbers back into the ring with Jaiswal. Even the removal of Sharma for 19 lbw to Root – the latest Joel Wilson decision to be overturned – could not stem the damage that followed. But it was the self-inflicted kind that stung most, last summer’s lesson in ruthlessness unheeded; the other side of the approach to which they are wedded.
