What lessons can England take from their last time in India?،
There's nothing new about Bazball, you could say. Two decades have passed since Virender Sehwag started throwing run-a-ball 300s for fun, and even the sepia-tinted Gilbert Jessop made a 76-ball century in 1902 that remains tantalizingly out of reach for the English baz-racers. It's no wonder, then, that England's apparent reinvention of the wheel has received so much resistance in recent times.
Nevertheless, there is something particularly compelling about the series that looms before us. Not only because England arrive with a plan that proved successful in two away campaigns in Pakistan and New Zealand last winter, but because much of the action that must take place unfolded during these five tests was repeated, both in defeat and in defeat. victory, in their last two clashes against India, home and away in 2021 and 2022.
On the face of it, a lot has changed for England since their last Test series in India, which took place in the midst of the Covid outbreak in February and March 2021. More symbolically, there is no place in top of the order for looks. -Before we jump, the duo of Rory Burns and Dom Sibley, although the latter's 87 off 286 balls in the first innings of the series nevertheless played a key role in his team's solitary victory.
What's also gone, however, is the air of mind-numbing pessimism that was set in motion by the end of this series. It's easy to forget that England have won six Tests in a row in Asia before the second Test of this tour in India. Joe Root's masterful batting form has won the last three matches almost single-handedly, in Galle and Chennai, while before that, in the winter of 2018-19, England's 3-0 victory in Sri Lanka had been provided by a group of broadly similar players. , and with an innovative style of “total cricket” – encompassing a deep strike force and bowlers for all occasions – that could almost be considered a prototype of Bazball.
What happened next was instructive for all kinds of different reasons. England's trio of defeats in the last three Tests, in Chennai and Ahmedabad, sparked an extraordinarily bleak ten-month streak of one win in 17 matches – exacerbated by Covid bubble restrictions, no doubt, but culminating with the 4-0. The Ashes crashed out the following winter, confirming the inevitable end of Root's tenure as captain. This mini-era was truly the darkness before the dawn from which Bazball would emerge, and the rest quickly became history as Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum set about psychologically reinvigorating their self-esteem. team.
But the curious truth about this period is that England knew – both from their earlier successes and from the speed of their later renaissance – that they were capable of playing better (and braver) cricket, but they simply could not access the mindset required to unleash their punching game and, in the oft-mocked mantra of the current regime, “run toward danger.”
And whatever impression they might give in public, India know from personal experience – during their two Covid-interrupted Test tour legs in 2021 and 2022 – that England's turnaround in fortunes will not It's not a coincidence.
In the first four Tests of this series in 2021 (and despite a swing masterclass from James Anderson at Headingley), the hosts were regularly intimidated by an exceptional Indian team playing in the uncompromising image of their then captain, Virat Kohli – most vehemently in their declaration of victory. in the second Test, at Lord's, when England's resolve crumbled in the third and fourth innings. Twelve months later, however, those same timid ones too were tracking down 378 at Edgbaston at almost five o'clock to level the series in unprecedented style.
The naysayers will say that there is a world of difference between a victorious gallop on a flat bridge in Birmingham and the spin trial which seems certain to await them in India in the coming weeks. But the need for courage in Test cricket is universal and, crucially, many of the same players who were swept aside three years ago will recognize that their own loss of courage was a crucial factor in such a sharp turnaround in the series.
When things were going well in the opening Test in Chennai, England played an unequivocal blinder, first thanks to Root's exceptional 218 – his third huge hundred in as many England victories – and secondly, with a formidable 578 to push against, a display of bowling that showcased the kind of hand-to-hand combat that now embodies the Bazball era.
Jofra Archer won't be present this time, but his influence on their tactics will surely endure. A superlative burst of five new balls evoked his MVP performance for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL: Archer scalped both Indian openers, including future peerless Rohit Sharma, with a relentlessly precise but subtly raw pace regime varied. , knives and assorted sleights.
And then, with those early wickets in the bag and enough runs in reserve to roll the dice against the middle order, there was an extraordinary duel between the returning Jack Leach and the unfortunately since injured Rishabh Pant – a duel which foreshadowed the uncompromising pursuit of wickets that became the other key element of England's new attitude.
This resulted in Leach bowling the first eight overs for 77 – “I thought I was playing in the IPL!” he joked afterwards, but the logic of the match was impeccable. With Leach extracting appreciable turn from outside the left-hander's off-stump and Pant trusting his methods to hit through the spin again and again, the passage of play wasn't just convincing, it was a warning sign potential of England's own batting approach. timeout. Pant's strength was his weakness: it could get him out at any time, so why go through the ceremony? Instead of dying in a hole, waiting for the ball bearing his name, he sustained himself through it all and pulled off the small matter of 91 off 88 balls in the process.
Although, on this occasion, Pant's counter-attack fell short, it was the kind of proactivity that England were unable to match when India increased the spin parameters for the last three Tests . Clearly, R Ashwin and Axar Patel received the plaudits for the turnaround in the series, as they shared 50 of England's 60 wickets in those three defeats. And yet, as Root proved by taking 5 for 8 in the first of the Ahmedabad Tests with his then still speculative attacks, the challenge of overcoming the conditions was not simply limited to the visiting batters.
Enter Rohit, whose magnificence at the top of the Indian order not only turned the series on its head but also provided a pointer to his beaten opponents on how to thrive in such heinous circumstances. By lunch on the first morning of the second Test, on a crumbly surface that was to become increasingly difficult, he had scored 80 off 106 for 3 and 161 off 231 balls by the time he was taken off in the 73rd over. .
“Mentally before the match, I was prepared for what I would face once I came into play,” Rohit said after that innings. “Be clear in your mind. You cannot be hesitant.” A week later, he did it again in even more extreme conditions in Ahmedabad, where his 66 and run-a-ball 25 not out helped condemn England to defeat in two days. Only Zak Crawley, fourth man out for 53 in an innings where no one else passed 17, came close to matching such transcendence. But despite their efforts or the eventual speed of their defeat, England still dribbled to a total of 193 runs in 79.2 overs in two innings, their slowest run rate at that stage for a completed Test since the beginning of 2020.
Other factors undermined England's competitiveness, including the ECB's rest and rotation policy, designed to manage player welfare during Covid, but which ended up denying them a first-choice XI at any time of winter. It also created a jam-tomorrow mentality within the team as a whole – a feeling that the team's real challenge always lay further down the track. It was a trait that Stuart Broad particularly evoked in a memorable tirade during the following winter's Ashes, and one from which England entirely eschewed, with their consistent and uncompromising team selection a defining characteristic of the philosophy of Bazball.
None of this necessarily means England are better placed to avoid the fate they, and almost every other visiting team, have endured since their last series victory in India, in 2012-13. But that victory in Chennai three years ago was the second of three home defeats India have suffered in 46 matches since the start of 2013, and if it contained within it the seeds of a strategy that would remain dormant for the remainder of the tour, Then perhaps even more instructive for the days to come is the manner in which Rohit and Pant tore the series apart in India.
