The first over of the morning on Day Two and Joe Root had the ball in the first Test between India and England. Ah, finally the man with the Midas ‘spinning’ touch, who has recently been added to England allrounders’ WhatsApp group. Where had he been on Day One, when Yashasvi Jaiswal was taking the mickey out of Tom Hartley? Wasn’t Root supposed to operate with the new ball? Anyway, better late than never.
Jaiswal’s batting is a bit of a one-way traffic against spinners, as he considers defending against them as a personal affront. No wonder then, that Root was slapped through the line for a four. The England off-spinner lured him to go for a repeat shot, just that he bowled a touch slower this time. A caught and bowled ensued. Unfortunately, Root was brought into the attack 20 overs too late. Jaiswal had already set the tone of India’s innings.
Only last month, India captain Rohit Sharma was severely criticised for his decision to start with Prasidh Krishna and Shardul Thakur post-lunch during the second day of the first Test against South Africa at Centurion. Not bowling Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj when the Proteas were under pressure saw India surrender the initiative. It was a mistake and captains do err. But Bazball, seemingly, has cast such a spell on English cricket that sometimes it feels like its chief protagonists, Stokes and Brendon McCullum, are beyond reproach. Not bowling Root up front against Jaiswal, who would have taken the ball away from the left-hand batter, was a mistake and it wasn’t a case in isolation.
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As India took a big first innings lead in Hyderabad, a lot of Stokes’s decisions didn’t add up. Why was James Anderson dropped? The Indian middle-and-lower-middle-order made merry on a slow turner, against an inexperienced and mediocre spin attack, and there was no one of Anderson’s class to bring reverse swing into play with the older ball. Mark Wood, the lone fast bowler, was given only 11 overs on the second day. Was his selection Shreyas Iyer-specific? Stokes, indeed, channelled his inner Douglas Jardine, in terms of field settings, when Iyer came out to bat. But Wood was given a two-over spell.
The England skipper showed unwavering faith in Hartley, so much so that when Root yanked open the door ajar by dismissing Jaiswal, the debutant, instead of the experienced Jack Leach, was brought on from the other end. As it turned out, Stokes’s faith in the youngster was misplaced. A spinner at this level is expected to bowl a consistent length, notwithstanding the fact he was playing his first Test. Hartley failed to do that. His two wickets on the second day were Republic Day gifts from Shubman Gill and KL Rahul. Gill played a poor shot, a casual waft across the line to Ben Duckett at mid-wicket. It wasn’t a wicket-ball, far from it.
Rahul pulled a long-hop to Rehan Ahmed at deep mid-wicket and cursed himself. The delivery was innocuous enough to make the batsman greedy. Instead of rolling his wrists and collecting a boundary, Rahul went for the maximum and belatedly realised that discretion would have been the better part of valour.
Some of Stokes’s field settings also defied logic, like not having a mid-on or a long-on for Hartley during the early part of Rahul’s innings. If he was enticing the batsman to play across the line against the turn, then a vacant mid-wicket might have been logical. Rahul didn’t mind. He hit back-to-back fours through the vacant mid-on/long-on region.
Also, on Day Two, Leach, the team’s senior-most spinner, bowled just 16 overs. Was he not a 100 per cent fit, or was it a case of managing the workload of a player who was coming back from a lower back stress fracture? Leach looked undercooked, which begged the question, why didn’t England play a warm-up game in the lead-up to the first Test? Spinners like to have overs under their belt to get into the groove. Root aside, none of the England spinners looked Test-ready.
A brutal dig came from the legendary Australian cricket commentator Jim Maxwell. “Bazbollocks has moved from batting to bowling. Absurd selection. Unbalanced. Inexperienced. At least England picked a wicketkeeper,” he posted on X (Twitter).
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