Number Nuggets- A Deep-dive analysis of 1st Test Match- England vs India 

What a great 1st test match we have had. It had everything we had expected from a perfect test match. Right from impressive captain's knock from both Virat Kohli and Joe Root to the superb spell of bowling from Ravichandran Ashwin, to an amazing spell of seam bowling from all the pacers to superb all-round display by Sam Curran.

Even though the England team won the match by a small margin, both the teams were equally good in all departments except for few up's and downs.

So, how did England manage to win this crucial encounter, and where did they find themselves holding an upper hand over India?

Let's find out in our deep-dive analysis of the first test match between England and India.

We wanted to analyze each and every aspect of the game, and that is the reason we deep-dived into the stats of each player and compared them with their opposition counterparts.

Let's first begin with Openers.

Openers:

It is said that a good start lays a foundation for a team to score big, but unfortunately, both the team's openers couldn't do that with effectiveness.

There isn't much to separate when it comes to the performance of both the team's openers in both the innings. Alastair Cook was done in by some brilliant ripper by Ashwin in both the innings. Jennings, Vijay, and Dhawan gave good starts, but couldn't capitalize.

Let's deep-dive into the numbers, and understand how both team's openers fared against each other.

Alastair Cook getting bowled by Ravichandran Ashwin

1st Innings:

As seen from the stats, the openers from both the countries scored similar runs at a similar strike rate and average. The good thing about England openers was their ability to rotate strike, which was better as compared to the Indian openers.

Overall, the openers from both the team's weren't that much effective, and it is very hard to separate these two team's players.

England openers vs Indian openers- 1st Innings

2nd Innings:

The second innings was even poor for both the team's openers with Indian openers performing slightly better.

England openers vs Indian openers- 2nd Innings

I believe, both the team's openers could have done a better job with their performances, but to our disappointment, they failed to do it.

Let's look at how the middle order performed for the both the teams.

Middle and Lower Order:

There were three names we could recollect of when we speak of the batting performance of both team's middle and lower order. They are Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow.

Let's deep dive into the numbers, and understand how both team's middle and lower fared against each other.

Virat Kohli celebrating his first century in England

1st Innings:

The stats look similar, right from the number of runs scored to balls faced to strike rate to average, etc.

What interesting happened in first innings was it was Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow for England and it was Virat Kohli for India, who were responsible to construct the innings for their respective teams.

England Middle and Lower order vs Indian Middle and Lower order- 1st Innings

2nd Innings:

This is where India emerged as a better team as compared to England. There were small contributions from almost everyone in the Indian team led by Virat Kohli's 51 as compared to England team, which didn't find any major contribution in their 2nd Innings.

Overall, Indian middle and lower order stood out as compared to England's, but as they say, in low scoring matches, matches are not won by decent contribution of the their top 7, but are won by how their tailenders performed

England Middle and Lower order vs Indian Middle and Lower order- 2nd Innings

We will come to the performances of tailenders later in the blog, but before that let's have a look at how spinners from both the teams performed.

Spinners:

England pitches are known for their pace and swing, and traditionally have been a nightmare for spinners to bowl on such pitches. However, that was not the case in this test match with both, Adil Rashid and Ravi Ashwin being able to extract spin, right from day 1.

Alright then, let's deep-dive into the numbers, and understand how spinners of both the teams fared against each other.

Ravichandran Ashwin celebrating a wicket against England

1st Innings:

England played to their strength of pace bowling whereas India played to their strength of spin bowling, and it can be clearly seen with the number of overs given to both the bowlers.

Ravichandran Ashwin was clearly the star of 1st innings for India grabbing 4 wickets. He bowled the maximum number of balls too for India. Adil Rahid, on the other hand, bowled less, but got a crucial wicket of Virat Kohli.

Overall, Ashwin wins this round with better performance of the two.

England Spinners vs Indian Spinners- 1st Innings

2nd Innings:

2nd Innings too shows similar stats with Ashwin doing the majority of the bowling. However, this time as compared to his first innings, he was slightly less effective. Adil Rashid didn't bowl that much in the second innings but was responsible for the wicket of Ishant Sharma.

Again this round goes to Ashwin for his better performance.

England Spinners vs Indian Spinners- 2nd Innings

As a word of praise, Ravichandran Ashwin was simply outstanding with his performances in both the innings, and that clearly highlighted the struggle of England players against the spin.

It wouldn't be a surprise if either of Kuldeep Yadav or Ravindra Jadeja get a game ahead of Umesh Yadav in the second test match.

Having seen the spinners, let's have a look at how pace bowling fared against each other.

Pacers:

The first match pitch played two ways, benefiting both the spin bowlers and pace bowlers. Both the team had 4 pace bowlers including an all-rounder.

So, let's deep-dive into the numbers, and understand pace bowlers of both the teams fared against each other.

Ishant Sharma bowled with perfect line and length in 2nd Innings for India

1st Innings:

As seen from the stats, England team pace bowlers were better as compared to Indian team bowlers with a better strike rate and total number of wickets.

For India, Hardik Pandya went wicketless, and for England, Staurt Broad went wicketless in 1st innings. However, England had good contributions from Curran, Stokes and Anderson as compared to India, where only Shami had a good contribution.

Clearly, England bowlers win this round from an overall perspective.

England Pace bowlers vs Indian Pace bowlers - 1st Innings

2nd Innings:

We can say, second innings saw a slightly similar performances from both the teams with contributions from Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav for India and contributions from Ben Stokes, Stuart Broad and James Anderson for England.

One thing which was very much visible was the ineffectiveness of Hardik Pandya as a bowler. He was way below par as compared to his counterpart, Ben Stokes, and was one of the reason why England were a slightly better bowling team.

It would be very tough to separate performances from both the teams as Ishant Sharma took 5 wickets with his superb spell, and Ben Stokes gave a match winning spell with 4 wickets.

England Pace bowlers vs Indian Pace bowlers - 2nd Innings

We believe, this round would go to England with better overall contributions from all England bowlers.

Having seen the batting and bowling performances of both the teams, let's have a look at performance which was the decider, and clearly highlighted the the difference between winning and losing.

Tailenders:

Let's cut the long story short. Indian tailenders were trying to block whereas England players were trying to score, and that is the best way to put the performance of players of both the teams.

However, to simplify things, let's deep-dive and understand how the tailenders from both the teams fared against each other.

Sam Curran scored a useful 63 to help England reach a competitive total

1st Innings:

As clearly visible from the stats, England players were able to not just hung in there, but were also able to contribute more with the bat. I believe, this was one of the differentiator which separated both the teams.

England Tailenders vs Indian Tailenders- 1st Innings

2nd Innings:

Clearly, 2nd innings is where we can see England team were way better as compared to the Indian team. This was majorly because of a brilliant knock by the 20 year old young chap, Sam Curran, who in only his second test match played a blinder of an innings to help England reach a competitive target.

England Tailenders vs Indian Tailenders- 2nd Innings

Concluding the test match, we believe, both the teams saw similar performances from their top 7 batsmen. A slightly better spin performance for Team India, and a slightly better pace bowling performance for Team England.

However, it was the contributions from England team's tailenders that created the difference between the winning and losing.

Thanks a lot for reading this blog. We hope you guys liked it.

We plan to bring you a similar analysis for 2nd match.

Till then, ciao!