‘Agony aunt’ is a typical British term. In the good old days, it was used for articles of advice in print. Nowadays, with the medium going digital – wherein written stories, audio, videos and social media come into play – the English continue to feel the pain.
Dharamsala was supposed to be a calm venue. The climate was more like that “at home” for England – cool, and with nip in the air. Plus, they had visited monasteries and prayed for succour. Regardless, a defeat inside three days in the fifth and final Test highlighted how brittle this English side was. Spineless, in fact.
This piece makes no attempt to dig into statistics, for that would be very academic. Yet, the reference point does become 2012, when England last won a Test series in India. Twelve years is a long time, yet it seemed like nothing had been learned.
Reactions to England’s performance, or the lack of, has been mixed among their own experts. Most of the cricket columnists in the English print media, and the faces on TV channels are former cricketers. Yet, what’s shocking is that despite Bazball coming a cropper in India, they continue to support England or find fault with India.
To be sure, England failing in India is no longer news. Their losses in series after series here, three in a row since 2012, have made them the butt of ridicule. Why? They come in with a mindset of arrogance and then think they will get favours.
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It may have been tempting to think that Dharamsala, given its clean mountain air and scenic beauty, would be different. A smaller ground, minus the clutter of big stands. Yet, from an English perspective, they did not even play with pride.
Compare the hype around two blokes who were playing their 100th Tests in Dharamsala, R Ashwin and Jonny Bairstow. Ashwin was focussed, had once he had the red cherry in his hand, he became Ashwin The Menace. In contrast, Bairstow was, perhaps, in more of a celebratory mood. But did he have anything to celebrate as a batter? He did smash Ashwin for three sixes on Saturday, but that was not Test batting. The need of the hour was discipline, application and hanging in there. Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah, India’s stand-in captain on Saturday, had shown more intent a day earlier.
If a seasoned pro like Bairstow and a celebrated captain Ben Stokes have been so off the ball this series, it tells you how bogus was the hype around Bazball. Perhaps, on the eve of the last Test, when Rohit Sharma asked: “What is Bazball?”, the message was clear. There is no prescription which always works. What usually does in Test cricket is commitment, discipline and, above all, a large heart.
Stokes failed with the bat. And for all talk of pedigree in the form of Joe Root, Ollie Pope, Zak Crawley and company, Stokes was never able to light the fire. For the record, Stokes did get Rohit’s wicket in Dharamsala, where he bowled for the first time. But that was not enough, for his fitness post-knee surgery, was always going to be a question mark.
A famous quote from Stokes comes to mind. “The problem is that we’ve been crap,” he said, after they flopped in their defence of the ICC World Cup last year in India. He was not captain in the white-ball format. Maybe, he could repeat that quote today.
Back to the agony aunts, and those wailing in England. Alastair Cook, the former England captain who led in 59 Tests, has shown sympathy for his one-time teammates. He said on air: “It’s a tough tour, they (England) are not robots. I’m not defending their performance but there is a human element of wanting to get home to get out of the pressure.” Sure enough, social media, led by Aussie Mark Waugh, came down on Cook with the force of a ton of bricks.
This is the age of instant opinions on social media. Excuses will not work. Stokes and Brendon McCullum have been unable to pull cotton wool over the eyes of the fans. England dropped far too many catches, often burned through their DRS reviews too soon, and lost their appetite for a scrap as the series wore on. Ben Duckett’s lame charge at Ashwin on Saturday morning illustrated just how they had unravelled.
In their last series in India (2021), during the Covid-19 pandemic when Chennai and Ahmedabad were the venues, England blamed poor pitches after being taken for a spin. This time, good pitches were on view at each of the five venues. No excuses there either.
Finally, one question the English captain and coach must answer is: what was the menu prepared by their chef who had come with the squad?
Anything, but cricket!
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