India fall short in the Hyderabad sweep-stakes

In the 15th over of the second of two roaring defenses spaced about 10,000 km apart, Rohit Sharma played a reverse sweep.

He played it as well as you would expect from a man who has only played it seven times before in his entire Test career. Bazball has done a lot of great things since his debut. Add making Rohit off-putting to the list.

The Indian captain had to take such extreme measures as the previous ball he was beaten while pushing forward to defend. And he was beaten again, pushing forward to defend the ball after that reverse sweep.

Pushing forward to defend is the ball the spinner had to bowl to Hyderabad.

Moving forward to defend is the ball that India were unable to play in Hyderabad.

At every available opportunity – and even sometimes when it didn't quite present itself – England attempted these sweeps and reverse sweeps and they succeeded. Eventually, they got to the point where they set records.

Since 2014 when ESPNcricinfo started collecting data on the type of shots played in Tests, only once has a team made more runs with these shots in India, and that was in England at Chennai 2021 when Joe Root, who loves taking out that broom. also, makes a double century.

Ninety-two runs in 56 balls, including 18 off 42 boundaries, would be fine returns alone. But they had another, more profound effect. All of a sudden, India's great strength – the axis of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja – was stopped from doing what it had been doing for years and years: putting down six balls in roughly the same spot , pulling and pushing the batter around the territory, picking up their technique and causing them to question every life choice that had led them to this moment.

Having to protect unusual areas on the field, Rohit hedged his bets. He had sweepers on both sides of the field, sometimes as many as five, which meant India couldn't really prepare for a dismissal. An England team that had seven points still scored 72 points in an hour of play, with 27 singles, four twos and three threes this morning. Rohit had good reason to spread the field: India were already behind in the match and they were batting last, so he couldn't risk giving away easy runs. Additionally, at this point the pitching had become very slow. Like the rainbow wheel of slow death. The hitters had enough time to adjust to the turn after the ball bounced.

India was cornered. “It happens,” their bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said on Saturday.

Maybe. Yeah. But at home? Never before had a lead of 190 resulted in a defeat.

England here was the first time in 11 years that a visiting team had scored over 400 in their second innings. And they came at a breakneck pace. 4.11 and above. Only 9.9 per cent of the players were girls, the lowest figure for India since Jadeja and Ashwin started playing Test cricket together.

This doesn't happen. It was a dream. An unreal fever dream.

Rohit moves forward to defend again. Only this time, the bullets stay on course. He doesn't go over the outside edge like a show pony. It slips past its inner edge and onto its front pad. He is losing weight. According to ball-by-ball data from ESPNcricinfo, during tea on the fourth day, India had made nine runs off 56 balls of good length for the loss of two wickets. England had made almost half of their total – 198 – from these deliveries.

They had their chance, of course. Ollie Pope didn't control a third of the sweep shots he played, including one that would have sent him away without a defensive failure. But he never stopped trying. This is why Mhambrey said he was courageous. You take a big risk playing like that – looking stupid if it doesn't happen – but what it also did – if you train as hard as England, if you commit to it as well as l England did it – it was probably a failure. the most disciplined bowling attack in Test cricket.

The Pope has made a century just with his sweeps. The story behind it, in his words: “They're very talented bowlers, the guys we were facing and you can pretty much tell where every ball is going to land and if you try to defend every ball there's probably more a chance you're going to come out rather than if you're doing cross shots. And I feel like we've practiced those shots enough that if you go out for nobody playing the reverse sweep, you're not going to discuss it a lot in the locker room.

“So I think you can go ahead and just go for it. I don't think I hit one in my first 20 odd runs and I was wondering why it wasn't hitting the middle of the bat. But here this could be like safe as a defense playing a reverse sweep or a sweep and I think if we continue to make sure we get more bad balls as hitters if we can hit their best ball for four with the reverse sweep , this can lead to more short balls and more half volleys and this opens up the whole pitch.

India, on the other hand, preferred to take the risk presented by the good length ball. They were happy to counter it with the whole face of the bat, although it was difficult to know for sure which direction and how far the ball would spin and how high it would bounce. All that uncertainty fell on their heads as this time Tom Hartley, Joe Root and Jack Leach managed to hold on. They were authorized to do so. India attempted only 18 overs or reverse sweeps.

Maybe England could be a little more cavalier because they didn't have much to lose. They were trailing by 190 runs when they launched the attack that secured them a victory that will rank alongside Mumbai and Kolkata 2012. To be so far off the pace and still make so many moves without conceding a single doubt. It's amazing.

Has India admitted its doubts? Maybe. Maybe not. What they did however was try to play normally in this freak test match which saw 25,000 people visit the ground every day, which saw over 1,000 runs scored at a rapid pace even though the pitch was a selectively watered returner, which in the end only turned because for the sixth time in history a batter made up his team's deficit on his own and who carried out a spinning attack including a guy on one leg, another who describes himself as a “right-arm optimist” and two with a combined Test experience outplays Ashwin and Jadeja.

One method does not necessarily trump the other. In fact, there's a strong case to be made for both teams sticking to the methods that have brought them immense success. It's just that one of them made history and the other could only get closer.