ENGLAND DON’T KNOW WHETHER TO STICK OR TWIST AND END UP BATTING LIKE… JOKERS
ANOTHER missed opportunity after winning a huge toss. Another case of England not learning from their mistakes. And, most curiously, a muddled selection that left Joe Root short of bowling options when he needed 20 wickets to gain anything from the series.
What frustration there was for England yesterday when handed the perfect chance to do what they did in the first Test and put the big first-innings runs on the board that have been the staple of their improvement under Root and head coach Chris Silverwood.
They simply could not take advantage in the best batting conditions since they posted 578 in Chennai and went on to one of their greatest victories. How long ago that seems now and what a different side England appear after two bruising defeats.
England really did try to heed their captain’s pre-match plea to be fearless on the first day of the final Test, but they could not strike the right balance between attack and defence. All too often they did not know whether to stick or twist.
True, Axar Patel continued an extraordinary start to his Test career with another four wickets to take his tally to 22 in his first five innings at the highest level. And Mohammed Siraj showed that India’s brilliance is not confined to spin by proving a more than capable seam stand-in for the indisposed Jasprit Bumrah.
But England were the architects of their own downfall, not least in a team selection that showed their thinking has become scrambled by those thrashings on sub-standard pitches.
Yes, there was a case for England to play an extra batsman — Dan Lawrence — after being demolished for 112 and 81 in a third Test that lasted less than two days. But the choice should have been between Lawrence and Dom Bess. Instead, England recalled a spinner they appeared to have lost all confidence in, then told him he had to be one of only three specialist bowlers.
Bizarrely, they left the seam load to just Jimmy Anderson and the under-used Ben Stokes, who was suffering from the stomach bug that has afflicted the squad. Surely there was a case to play Mark Wood or Olly Stone instead of Lawrence or Bess, even in the absence again of the injured Jofra Archer.
It does not take hindsight to consider England’s choice highly questionable and one that just did not work, even though Lawrence showed signs of real promise in his 46 before naively giving his wicket away in pursuit of a big shot to reach his half-century.
Just as England might have won the third Test had they reached 200 after winning the toss, they would have been very much in this game on a much better pitch had they made a par score of 300.
That minimum requirement was still within reach when Stokes and Ollie Pope were together, even after Dom Sibley had gone to Patel’s second ball, Zak Crawley perished in pursuit of aggression, Root had been trapped on the crease by the excellent Siraj and Jonny Bairstow was unluckily given out lbw to a bail-trimmer.
Stokes had shown his intent by smashing the fifth ball delivered by his nemesis, the off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, for six after relishing a verbal joust with Siraj and India captain Virat Kohli, who could not resist getting involved in the scrap.
And when Stokes went to his half-century with a reverse-swept four off Patel, a safer shot on a pitch with more consistent bounce, he seemed in the mood to go on to his first sizeable contribution in any discipline since the heady days of that first Test at Chennai.
Alas for England, it was not to be, Stokes falling to India’s third spinner Washington Sundar after being stuck on the crease, in contrast to the pro-active but far from reckless way he had gone to 50 off 114 balls.
This seemed an important innings for Pope after his cat-on-ahot-tin-roof impression in this series. There were those who felt a man commonly regarded as England’s next great Test batsman should have been taken out of the firing line, and others who believed he needed to justify that promise by batting higher in the order.
England left him at six where, in an all too brief stand of 45 with Lawrence, Pope provided a glimpse of England’s exciting batting future until he fell in freakish fashion, inside-edging Ashwin through his legs and off his back pad to Shubman Gill at short leg.
Lawrence, who had shown his class with contrasting consecutive boundaries off Patel, could also have fallen in an unfortunate manner when ‘caught’ by Gill off his boot, but he was reprieved by TV’s inconclusive foreshortened evidence.
Sadly, Lawrence could not take advantage of that slice of luck and England trickled past 200 despite packing their side with the batting depth that saw Ben Foakes at eight and the more-than-capable Bess at nine.
Anderson trapped Gill with the third ball of India’s reply but they had no further alarms in reducing their deficit by 24, the sight of Bess bowling a no-ball then a long hop with his first two deliveries hardly settling his and England’s nerves.
How they need Bess and Jack Leach to prosper today, otherwise much of the good work they have done throughout this Test winter on the sub-continent will be spoilt by a third defeat — and one that would have been the most self-inflicted of the lot.