When England lost to Bangladesh in Dhaka a week back, a few memes started circulating on social media like Facebook on how the Indian spinners too would have a feast in the five-match series. But two days into the first Test at Rajkot those memes have disappeared.
And why wouldn’t they? The same English batsmen who fell prey to the likes of Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Shakib Al Hasan on rank turners in Bangladesh have suddenly come out all guns blazing on a greenish looking surface here.
After the first two hours of the first Day where India picked up two wickets, it was all about the Englishmen who batted as if they were playing on concrete pitches. The conditions were quite similar though as the Indian bowlers sweated it out to take wickets. By the end of the Day, England were 311/4 with Joe Root bagging a hundred.
On Day two also, they started off quite well with two more of their batsmen namely Mooen Ali and Ben Stokes getting to their centuries as they piled on more misery on the Indians. England finally were bowled out for 537 after 159.3 overs.
Here, in this article we look at the areas where England outdid India to go on and get such a huge score.
#1 Nullifying the threat of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja
Before the series started there was a lot of talk around the England batting and if they were equipped enough to deal with the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja on turning Indian wickets. Well, the wicket didn’t turn and Ashwin especially wasn’t that effective.
Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers for India but he also gave away 86 runs for his three wickets. The last time Ashwin gave away more than a hundred runs in an innings he had also picked up six wickets which were against New Zealand at Kanpur in September. But here he was smashed for 167 runs and was able to pick up only 2 Kiwi scalps.
And though his partner in crime Jadeja picked up three wickets, he wasn’t at his sharpest. More often than not he had difficulty in finding his radar which allowed England batsmen to get off the hook.
#2 Reading and picking Amit Mishra
On an Indian surface, you would always back a wrist spinner to deliver. Amit Mishra tried his best but just couldn’t. From Joe Root to Ben Stokes, everyone seemed to pick India’s third frontline spinner well and time and again he was smashed to the fence with disdain.
The leggie’s famous googly too was well dealt with. Stokes even smashed a few into the stands after picking the length early. Yes, there wasn’t much turn or bounce on offer but at times it seemed like the bowler had run out of ideas.
After the lunch session on Day two, it looked like Mishra had just given up. That showed too in his bowling as he dragged a few half way down the pitch and bowled quite a few full tosses.
#3 Attacking the spinners
It was the ploy from the outset to not let the Indian trio settle in. All the England batsmen made sure they used their feet to get to the pitch off the ball to smother the turn, whatever little that was on offer.
When they failed to get to the pitch they played the ball with soft hands so that the close in fielders did not have any chance of grabbing one. The easy-paced wicket also aided the English batsman in this.
There was five sixes hit in the England innings and all of them came against the Indian tweakers with Amit Mishra giving away three. Ravichandran Ashwin also yielded 19 boundaries.
#4 The middle order contributing with three hundreds
The last time a foreign batsman got a hundred in a Test on Indian soil it was 2013 and the cricketer was the then Australian captain Michael Clarke. Three years later, in the very first Test of the series England batsmen found the triple figure mark not very far away.
Joe Root, Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes all completed their sparkling tons displaying their dominance over the much talked about bowling attack. While Ben Stokes got the highest with a 235-ball 128, Joe Root notched 124 runs. Ali contributed with a dazzling 117.
#5 Making use of the chances they were gifted
A cat has nine lives and England had six. Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed were put down on the first morning but that didn’t cost the hosts much. What hurt them was Moeen Ali’s drop. Ali had just got to his fifty and he tried to flick one on to the leg side off Ashwin.
The ball went off the face of the bat and straight through the hands of Cheteshwar Pujara who was at short leg, though it wasn’t the easiest of chances you would expect someone as good as Pujara to snatch one of those. Ali then went on to get 117.
On Thursday morning it was Wriddhiman Saha’s butter fingers that let Ben Stokes off the hook twice. First, when he was batting on 60, he slashed one to Saha and the wicket-keeper diving to his right spilled it. Next, it was almost a mirror image of the first as Stokes then at 61 slashed again and Saha grassed it again. The second chance though was a lot easier and both times it was Umesh Yadav who was at the receiving end. Stokes finally got out after amassing 128 runs.
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