IND Win By An Innings In Dharamsala, Finish Series 4-1
In 2012, ENG toured India for a series longer than 2 or 3 Tests for the first time since 1984. Since then, they have now toured IND 4 times. They won in 2012 (2-1), and lost in 2016 (0-4), 2021 (1-3) and 2024 (1-4). In each series, ENG have done progressively worse.
Consider the record of fast bowlers and spinners for each team in each of the 4 series.
Also, consider the ENG and IND batting in each series. ‘nic’ - not in control
In 2012, ENG’s spinners and fast bowlers out bowled their IND counterparts. In 2016 and 2024, it was the reverse. In 2021, it was the IND spinners who outdid the ENG spinners, while ENG’s fast bowlers held their own. The pitches in 2024 were much better than the pitches in 2021. Nevertheless, the IND bowlers induced false shots from ENG’s bats more frequently in 2024 than they did in 2021. ENG did score quicker (60.6 runs per 100 balls faced in 2024, to 43.9 runs per 100 bf in 2021). The gap between the amount of jeopardy created by the respective bowling attacks was larger in 2024 than it has been in the three previous series.
The fifth Test was in some ways a repeat of what had gone before. ENG won the toss and batted first. They reached 175/3 and then collapsed to 218 all out. These collapses have happened to ENG in every Test match. At Hyderabad, they reached 3/121, and then lost 7/125. At Vizag, 3/136 was followed by 7/117, and then 3/154 was followed by 7/138. At Rajkot, 3/225 was followd by 7/94 in the 2nd innings. In the fourth, 3/28 was followed by 7/96. At Ranchi, ENG did well, reaching 3/109 and then 353 all out in the first innings, but then collapsed from 3/110 to 145 all out.
These collapses are seen as a sign of a fragile line up. They are caused by the relentless quality of the IND bowling. IND have offered ENG very few indifferent overs all series. They also had several bowling options which allowed them to change the line and style of attack frequently. ENG did not have these luxuries.
One of the common refrains about the series, especially among English observers (for example, see Jonathan Agnew of the BBC), is that ENG had their moments. That there were periods when the scorecard suggests that ENG had a chance. These moments are illusions. ENG didn’t fail to seize such moments. They just didn’t have to quality with the ball to sustain the difficult questions which had been posed for a little while to IND’s batters. ENG didn’t have bowlers they could turn to. At Ranchi for instance, Shoaib Bashir came on to bowl in the 9th over and bowled unchanged until the 69th over. He didn’t take a wicket in his last 11 overs. Bashir also bowled unchanged from over 79 to 125 in the first innings at Dharamshala. ENG took the new ball as soon as it became available, and Bashir bowled 22 overs unchanged with the new ball.
It was not just that ENG’s bowling was thin and lacking in variety. It was also lopsided. James Anderson bowled 110 overs in the series, over 27 spells. Jasprit Bumrah, who bowls much quicker, bowled 106 overs in the series, over 29 spells. Both played 4 Tests each. Bumrah bowled 20.4% of IND overs playing in a 5 man attack. Anderson bowled 15.5% of ENG’s overs playing in a 4 man attack.
ENG created less jeopardy with the ball than IND did. It wasn’t a case of ENG letting IND get away when they had them in an apparently precarious position. It was the case that ENG simply didn’t have the firepower to sustain their threat.
The emblematic event of the series was Ben Stokes bringing himself on to bowl immediately after Lunch on Day 2 at Dharamsala. IND were 264/1 against 218 all out. Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma had centuries to their name. There was something in the pitch for Stokes and Anderson. Stokes got a wicket with his first ball, and bowled 5 overs. He never bowled again in the innings. Stokes’s last over in that innings was the 70th. The innings lasted a further 54 overs. Curiously, Stokes did not bowl at all in the first 61 overs of IND’s innings either.
Unlike in 2021, when they at least tried to field a bowling attack which could take 20 wickets in a Test, in 2024, ENG’s bowling was little more than a gesture. It appeared as if ENG picked bowlers because they had to look plausible. They toured with four spinners and four fast bowlers, even though they never played more than 2 fast bowlers. They didn’t replace Jack Leach and Rehan Ahmed when those two bowlers were ruled out of the series. What’s more, they did all this even after winning the first Test thanks to an unlikely innings from Ollie Pope. After surviving 75 false shots in Hyderabad for 196, Ollie Pope was dismissed 8 times in 45 false shots in the next four Tests.
The Indian batting enjoyed a string of good pitches. Their top 3 made two centuries each, and every debutant batter they fielded made at least a half century (with the exception of Rajat Patidar). Sarfaraz Khan’s batting ranged from the insouciant to the impudent, while Dhruv Jurel and Devdutt Padikkal were more classical. Padikkal’s shape while batting is reminscent of Yuvraj Singh. The ENG bowling didn’t offer enough threat to know how good these IND bats really are. For now, its enough to say that they were good enough to cobble more than enough runs for the IND bowling attack to bowl ENG out twice in every Test match.
IND have handed ENG a mauling in the 2023-24 series.
Read my reviews for previous Tests:
It baffles me that most commentators on air or analysts discussing these matches later, including Indians, seemed to be still caught up in Bazball’s reality distortion field. So much so that hardly anyone made the point you’ve been making consistently: that to win test matches, one needs to have a bowling attack capable of taking 20 wickets consistently and cheaply, and that India have generally been doing well in tests because they have picked 5 bowlers offering much variety of attack.
Great article. But when you listen to it using the app, it converts score like “3/7” to “July 3rd”. Pretty sure there isn’t anything you can do about that, but I thought I’d just let you know.