England In Textbook Test Win
Order was restored on Day 5 at Chepauk. On a wearing wicket the ball misbehaved and the bowling side rolled over the batting side. There was no 300 run chase. The Indian captain Virat Kohli was dismissed by a shooter. Ajinkya Rahane was dismissed by what was arguably the ball of the match from James Anderson - a fast off-break on the perfect length. Cheteshwar Pujara fell, like Rohit Sharma to the the left arm spinner Jack Leach’s stock ball - perfectly pitched, a spinning viciously. The third and fourth innings of the Test involved less than 200 runs each. This is how it should be. Tests are usually decided on the first innings, and if this sometimes means that one side gets an advantage because it won the toss, then so be it.
Jack Leach and Dominic Bess had their problems with line and length, but it didn’t really matter. When their turn to bowl came the wicket had begun to wear, and England had plenty of runs to play with. One shudders to think what might have happened if Leach and Bess had bowled on the Day 1 wicket.
Jofra Archer and James Anderson are arguably the finest English new ball pair to come to India since Ian Botham and Bob Willis in 1981. England should play Stuart Broad in place of Bess from the 2nd Test onward. First, it will give Archer and Anderson some much needed cover, and it will give Joe Root some much needed control. He won’t always have 578 runs to play with, and he won’t always get wickets from a full toss and off a lucky bounce off short-leg’s back.
India’s bowlers bowled 29 No Balls in the Test, conceding 55 runs. England’s bowlers bowled two and conceded 5 runs. Bowling on a slow, lifeless wicket on the first couple of days, India could ill afford such profligacy. The disadvantage of losing the toss was magnified by the fact that the little things which had gone India’s way regularly in Australia didn’t go their way at Chepauk. Instead, they went England’s way.
England did nearly everything right. Joe Root made runs. Dominic Sibley did what Cheteshwar Pujara often does for India - shut one end down. James Anderson was his usual classy self. He rarely bowls a bad ball. This truly is a outstanding era of fast bowling in Test history.
England’s margin of victory in this Test was pretty much the number of runs they scored on the first day when the wicket offered absolutely nothing to any type of bowler. This is not unusual in Tests in India. If India lose the toss again next week, they could find themselves in great difficulty.