In a Test against Australia in Nagpur in 2008, there was an unusual day of play. The pitch was good for batting and it was not easy to run through a strong batting line-up. MS Dhoni stunned everybody by asking his bowlers to stick to a wide-outside-off line with eight fielders on that side for almost the entire day. Frustrated, Ricky Ponting’s team lost the plot, match and, eventually, the series.
Pressure is a key word in Test cricket for a bowling side. You may not take wickets for a long time. The batters may be treating you with confidence. It’s still important to create periods when they can’t break free. You must make them work hard for runs. It’s an old method — not necessarily as drastic as the one adopted by Dhoni — which has stood the test of time.
Watching Day 3 of the India-England Test in Hyderabad, one couldn’t help but feel that this was exactly what India failed to do. Riding on the heroics of Oliver Pope, the visiting side wriggled out of what appeared to be a hopeless situation and even reached a position from where they could apply pressure on India in the fourth innings if they get a few more runs.
Other than the bravery of Pope, what stood out was India’s failure to rein England in. They started scoring in torrents, going at nearly six per over in the first session. The second session saw India come back with four wickets, and the scoring rate came down to just above three per over. In the post-tea period, it again rose above four, with England losing just one more wicket.
It was strange to see Rohit Sharma not asking his spinners to alter the line when the batters swept and reverse-swept with impunity before lunch. It became very predictable that whatever was bowled would be dealt with these two shots. It’s not clear if the captain wanted them to, but the experienced spinners kept bowling at the stumps despite seeing the outcome over after over.
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An Ollie Pope unbeaten century, one of the finest by a visiting batter on Indian soil, has spiced up the India vs England 1st Test in Hyderabad.
He takes our performer of the day on Day 3.#INDvENG #OlliePope #IndiaVsEngland@CricSubhayan @BCCI pic.twitter.com/fku5f8YixM
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) January 27, 2024
This is why one was reminded of the Dhoni tactic. It didn’t have to an 8-1 field, but the Indians in Hyderabad did not resort to anything like bowling to one side of the wicket, packing the field, stemming the flow of runs and waiting for the batters to err. They kept bowling at the stumps and getting hammered.
In a five-day game, there will be passages of play not going your way, no matter who you are, what you stature is. But you must still weigh in, using tactical acumen, street smartness in other words, to find a way back. That is what India failed to do. They went with England’s flow, played to their tune. One doesn’t know yet at what price!
That they fell to the same trap again in the post-tea session after a brilliant lunch-to-tea period is even more bizarre. Pope reverted to sweeps and reverse-sweeps, mostly the latter. There was no evident ploy to counter that. By successfully deploying it, England’s Ian Bell-lookalike once again destroyed India’s plans, if there were any. This time, the method was different.
Failing to abate the flurry of fours, Rohit fell back on the worst possible ploy under the circumstances. He spread the field out. This allowed Pope and Ben Foakes to work the ball into the gaps that had suddenly opened up. They milked the bowling into these expanses for singles and twos. Not often had Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja been subjected to this treatment on Indian soil. It’s quite telling to that this was the first time in over a decade that an opposition side had gone past 300 while batting second in India.
India may not have taken wickets. But they could have stopped the batters from roaming around with such gay abandon. Having allowed that, India are now in a situation where possibilities hitherto nonexistent have become visible. Pressure, in a different sense of the word, is now building on India.
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