The visiting English team was undone by the Indian
spinners in the Indian conditions. There were a lot of discussions regarding
the spin friendly conditions in these pitches. But that is what we call the favorable
home conditions. When the Indians tour New Zealand, South Africa and England
they have to face the hostile pace friendly conditions. Likewise when these
nations tour the Asian nations they should be prepared to face the spin
friendly conditions here. England had defeated Sri Lanka in the recently
conclude test series there and had high expectations. Since 1980, England has been the only team to
win two test series in India, the latest being in 2012. England started off
well in Chennai. Batting first they
posted a mammoth total of 578, with Joe Root scoring a fine double hundred. The
Indian first innings ended up at 337. England was all out for 178 in their
second innings. But India couldn’t manage to put up a fight and was folded out
for 192 runs. England had an imposing victory of 227 runs. But in the second
match in Chennai England failed miserably and never showed up to the contest.
Winning the toss, India made 329 in their first innings, with Rohit Sharma scoring
a breezy 161. In reply English batsmen could only muster 134 runs in their
first innings. Indian off spinner Ravichandra Ashwin picked up 5 English
wickets in the first innings. India in their second innings was at some stage
106/6, before Ashwin once again contributed to the Indian cause, this time with
the bat. Ashwin scored 106 and India reached 286/10. English batsmen once again
fell to the spin trap of India and failed to put up a fight. They were bowled
out for 164 runs and India won by a huge margin of 317 runs.
After the two tests in Chennai, the part moved to Ahmadabad. The third test was the pink ball day night test. The pitch once again looked a turner. India went to the match with three spinners in their ranks. But England picked only one specialist spinner in the form of Jack Leach. England won the toss, but couldn’t utilize the advantage once again and were bowled out for a paltry 112 . English batsmen found it hard to handle the spin of Axar Patel and the spinner picked up 6 wickets in the first Innings. India was bowled out for 145 in their first inning with Joe Root picking up 5 wickets. Jack Leach picked up 4. So the match was somewhat evenly poised and England had a chance, since India had to bat in the fourth innings in the crumbling pitch. But once again the English batsmen were undone by Axar Patel and Ashwin . Their second innings ended in 81 runs. India chased down the 49 runs without losing a wicket and grabbed a 10 wicket victory. The 4th and final test was also in the same ground. Now the English had their confidence low and the spin threat was always looming in their minds. India had to avoid defeat to ensure their place in World Test Championship finale. Once again England won the toss and elected to bat. England batsmen managed 205 in the first innings. Axar Patel picked up 4 , Ashwin 3 and Siraj 2 wickets respectively. In reply India made 365 in the first innings with the help of an attacking century from Rishabh Pant. Second Innings of England came to a halt at 135 with once again Ashwin and Axar picking up 5 wickets each. So the series ended with India winning 3-1 and making a entry to the World Test Championship Final.
Joe Root
The rotation policy of English team
played a part in their poor performance in the recently concluded test series.
They never played their best team, resting some of their main players. James
Anderson, Jofra Archer and Stuart Broad make a serious threat to the
opposition. But they never played together continuously in the series. Likewise
Moeen Ali could have been beneficial to the English cause in third and fourth
test matches. He could have contributed with bat and ball alike. Jose Butler is
just another attaching batsman who could have taken the attack to the
opposition, which Rishabh Pant had done for India. English batsmen were not
prepared to play the spin conditions of India. They had taken India lightly
after their victory in Sri Lanka. But later they realized the difference in
quality.
Rishabh Pant
Comments
Post a Comment