Recent Match Report – India vs England, England tour of India, 1st Test

England 246 (Stokes 70, Bairstow 37, Ashwin 3-68, Jadeja 3-88) and 420 (Pope 196, Duckett 47, Bumrah 4-41, Ashwin 3-126) batted India 436 (Jadeja 87, Rahul 86, Jaiswal 80) and 202 (Rohit 39, Hartley 7-62) by 28 runs

Less than two days after missing numerous travel plans, England scored one of their biggest Test victories in front of the raucous Barmy Army and a stunned crowd in Hyderabad. Of all the ways you look at winning a Test in India, falling behind by 190 in the first innings, a deficit never before reversed by a visiting team in India is not one of them. Yet England did the unthinkable with their most experienced player injured, half their team gone before the scores were level, and did so with insistence even as a hilarious last wicket brought India less than 29 points from its objective.

The highest lead India has lost since is 192, in Galle in 2015. This victory for Sri Lanka was shaped by a sweeping, adventurous and unique knock from Dinesh Chandimal. Ollie Pope played that role for England, scoring 196 runs filled with sweeps, reverse sweeps and reverse Dilscoops, wasting the lengths of the Indian spinners as if they were match predictions after two days of cricket. The other hero was Tom Hartley, the debutant left-arm spinner who was hit for two sixes in his first Test cricket and sentenced to one of the costliest scans for a debutant, who ended up with seven wickets in the second innings.

Starting the day 126 ahead with just four wickets in hand, Pope added 48 to his overnight 148 with crucial help from Rehan Ahmed and Hartley. Only five times have 230 or more been successfully tracked down in India, but the hosts would have had reason to be optimistic. Jack Leach, the experienced spinner, was limping at best. Hartley, the other left-arm spinner, had been punished for 63 runs in his nine-run opening spell in the first innings. Ahmed had been so inconsistent and Mark Wood so unsuited to the conditions that Joe Root had been their best bowler up to that point.

However, the chases in the fourth inning follow their own rhythm. Ben Stokes, who led like a millionaire in the first innings to buy wickets, knew he just needed in and out fields here. Root, Hartley and Leach rose to the occasion despite obvious limitations. And India, unlike England, provided them with a stationary target, allowing them to bowl over and over again at a good length, a luxury that the Indian spinners did not offer.

You can imagine Pope, Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley spent two weeks in Abu Dhabi just practicing the different sweeps rather than their forefoot defense against spins. They seized those opportunities in the second set after playing defensively in the first. The Pope's execution lasted the longest. Some shots were sensational, like his repeat of the reverse Dilscoop on Ravindra Jadeja from Saturday.

The fact that Jasprit Bumrah was India's best bowler is an indictment of the spinners – world champions and two of the greatest of all time. He got Ahmed early with a reverse swing and also ended Pope's innings with a slower ball. Between that, however, Hartley and Pope added 80 for the eighth wicket. During this partnership, with Ashwin and Jadeja bowling, India struggled to hold on and the pitch parameters allowed for singles everywhere.

Perhaps it is not unfair to say that India had no answer at the time when unorthodox methods were working against it. Pope did need a little luck, 72 false answers, which is the second most innings since 2003, but he did his part to get rid of catching men, reducing the power of errors induced by the bowlers.

Pope was able to do what he did because that's the philosophy of Bazball: rather get out of the scoop rather than defend as he did in the first innings. Because if he performs a reverse sweep, he is playing what he has trained and prepared for. The fact that England had nothing to lose after falling behind by 190 was even more liberating.

India had none of these freedoms. Firstly, they are not natural sweepers, forget about reverse sweepers. They also had a home test to lose, something they rarely do, and never after taking that kind of first-innings lead.

Stokes, who had sought to make wickets in the first innings with attacking pitches, could now fall back on the conventional method: attack with the ball, defend with the pitches. Two catchers at wicket, two at cover and mid-wicket, but others protect runs.

Wood knocked down just one with the new ball – in which he dropped Rohit Sharma at second slip – but Root and Hartley were then all over the right length like a rash. India got off to a fairly good start, getting 42 for the first wicket, but the spinners were troubling them and not making the length errors they had made in the first innings.

Credit must be given to Stokes, who continued to play Hartley in the first innings despite this ordinary start and put it into his work. Now that he had found his length, India needed someone to help them move away from their areas. The first time anyone tried it, Yashasvi Jaiswal was outside the crease, forced to defend due to the length correction, but Pope took a superb catch at short leg in front of the bat. Two balls later Hartley had dismissed Shubman Gill, who defended with hard hands and Pope got down on his knees at a silly moment to catch him again on the face of the bat.

Rohit was the only Indian batter to show willingness to sweep and bowl spinners down the length. He even played three reverse sweeps after playing the shot just seven times in his Test career. Two of them gave him limits. However, Hartley was kind enough to pin him in territory and defend forward on the one that didn't turn over, and put him in the ground.

India encouraged Axar Patel to introduce a left-handed batter into the mix and make better use of his batting ability. He and KL Rahul added 32 for the fourth wicket, but the runs came in two spurts. First when Rahul was allowed to sweep from outside leg, and the second when Ahmed missed his length.

Once England controlled the bad balls, the wickets came quickly. Axar flicked a return to Hartley, and Rahul returned to a full ball from Root, a rare misjudgment of length.

Jadeja then escaped and Shreyas Iyer played arguably the worst shot, giving a slippery drive to Root when he followed the turn and opened the face for Hartley. The ball had now gone soft and India were in a position to capitalize on the easier batting conditions. Instead, KS Bharat and Ashwin added a conservative 57 for the eighth wicket in 21.4 overs. If India had more wickets during this phase, they could have come closer.

In the dying moments of the day, Hartley produced his ball of the match, one which drifted, leg-swinged and past Bharat's bat to remove off stump. England claimed the extra half hour and, despite a haphazard 25-run standoff between Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, headed home in the latter part of the day.