On a day India doffed its cap to Ravichandran Ashwin for reaching the milestone of 500 Test wickets, an Englishman looked bent on spoiling the party. Ben Duckett not only hammered the fastest century by a visiting opener in India, but also opened a path for England to reach a position from where they can put pressure on the home team.
Duckett wasted no time in silencing the Indians in the stands after England started their innings shortly before tea in Rajkot and kept them in a state of shock until the end. ‘Let him do this, he will miscue one soon’, was the common refrain. This assumption made sense because he had thrown away starts in the four previous innings. Friday the 16th was different.
The sweeps, reverse sweeps kept flowing and there were also some scarcely believable and immaculately timed hits down the ground. Not often do Indians look so clueless against a visiting batter. Duckett broke stereotypes and set a model which will be difficult to emulate. This was calculated risk-taking, with high rewards.
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Ben Duckett hammers India for a blistering unbeaten century on Day 2 | IND vs ENG
England opener Ben Duckett showcased a one-man show on Day 2 of the Rajkot Test as the southpaw scored a blistering century to push the hosts on the backfoot.@CricSubhayan @SportsNaresh… pic.twitter.com/fAIW92bvIQ
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) February 16, 2024
The same batter had looked hopelessly out of sorts at the same venue in 2016. In a total of 537, Duckett at No. 4 scratched around for 13 before swinging aimlessly and getting caught near the square-leg umpire. His series ended with scores of five and zero in the next Test in Visakhapatnam. It was appropriate then that his India redemption came in Rajkot.
There is more to the Duckett story and this has little to do with his outlandish batting. Did Rohit Sharma miss an important trick? In his previous seven innings on Indian soil, he was dismissed by Ravichandran Ashwin five times. It is believed that when numbers are so one-sided, the bowler tends to have a psychological edge over the batter. Remember Shane Warve versus Darryl Cullinan?
Going by the number of overs bowled in the innings, it was perhaps okay to introduce Ashwin in the 12th. The point is, Duckett was already batting on 55 and England at 71/0 were going at 6.45 per over. Saying this with the help of hindsight, but could Ashwin have made a difference? For all the noise over aggressive batting, Duckett’s average in India before this innings was 21.28.
Yet, the bowler to have tormented him the most was merely watching him go berserk, without being handed the ball. It’s another matter that Duckett wasn’t in any obvious discomfort against Ashwin when he eventually came on to bowl. But by then, he had already hit his stride. Bowling to one’s ‘bunny’ early on in his innings and when he is past 50 are totally different scenarios.
This was all the more odd because Rohit wasted no time in getting Jasprit Bumrah back in the attack as soon as Joe Root came into bat. He had done the same in the previous Test in both innings, where Bumrah got his man for five in the first. Rohit did that in Rajkot too, because he was aware that his fast bowler had dismissed England’s most technically accomplished batter eight times.
One can also say that Rohit didn’t ask his spinners to bowl wide outside off against Duckett and force him to take more risks. However, not letting Ashwin loose against him when he was cutting loose appeared to be a bigger oddity. Sure the India skipper has his plans against every England batter, but did he not remember Ashwin’s overwhelming record against Duckett?
Also Read: Ashwin Scales 500-Wicket Peak