England turned up to India with two young spinners and an injured Jack Leach.
They had to rely on Joe Root to bowl the most overs he has ever bowled in his life They really turned up for their first major away tour in Bazball with four of the most random dudes as their spinners.
Before the final innings, do you know who was bowling spin in the warm-up? Ben Stokes. We saw it during the Ashes too, and we know he has been working on his off-breaks a lot at practice. He will bowl offies in Test cricket. And coming into the last innings, it looked like he was preparing to break the glass in case of an emergency. Considering India made 400 the first time, and should have scored more, it made sense.
England conceded a first-innings lead of 190 runs. CricViz’s win predictor had them at a 5% chance of winning the Test match. In terms of first-innings deficits, England essentially pulled off the 10th biggest comeback win in the history of Tests.
And many of these comebacks, they were not against a bowling attack of this quality, on wickets with massive turn. India’s home record in the last decade is just stupidly good.
The gap between India and the two next-best teams - New Zealand & Australia - is massive when we look at the win percentages in this time period.
India's win percentage in the last decade has been higher than that of the West Indies in the 1980s and Australia from 1995 to 2005. However, some of that is due to the number of draws there used to be.
But the win-loss ratio makes things a little more clear. West Indies went 18-1 at home in the 80s, so India was not on that level. But their record at home is really similar to Australia's of 95-05, on both win percentage as well as win-loss ratio.
Even if it wasn’t as good as those two great teams, the fact that we are comparing them to those teams tells you a lot.
And England beat them by coming from behind. This wasn’t a slug out on a bunsen wicket like the Australian wins at Indore and Pune. Nor was it on the back of Joe Root dominating a depleted bowling lineup at Chennai. This was a comeback against a team on a wicket that was way above average in terms of turn, even by Indian standards. They did something really special here.
But what role did Bazball play in all this?
Do you know one thing that wasn’t really all that Bazball? Ben Stokes’ first innings knock. He was the only batter who could kick on after getting a start, unlike others who kept getting out after settling at the crease.
Once again, it wasn’t a normal innings. It was normal for Stokes though. His ability to shift through the gears - or maybe, skip gears going from one to five - within the same innings has been well-documented.
But he has being doing that for ages. And yes he hit out at the end, but he was batting with the tail, most people do that.
But that innings did start with some Bazballness. England started off really well on day one. They went after the Indian seamers early on, scoring 41 runs off the first eight overs. We all expected this, because it made the most sense. It’s what the England batters are best at.
But India’s spin attack really managed to slow things down. However, this allowed them to start against the spin with a small cushion. This was very Bazball. But the innings wasn’t. England were very timid against the spinners, there was little counter-attack, even if they tried some mild unconventional ideas. And they ended up under par.
But that is not what England said. This was the most Bazballian thing England did in that innings. They were not above par, there were plenty more runs that could have been scored on this pitch, as the next two innings - and even India’s chase - suggested.
India’s first innings went well beyond any total England thought was par. Jaiswal’s knock was very similar to the ‘Bazball’ philosophy. He took the attack to the opposition and was not afraid to play his shots. When you look at the dismissals of some of the Indian batters, they weren’t because England bowled well. (Although again, England did claim to bowl well.)
Rohit stepped out before the ball was even bowled which allowed Leach to drop shorter.
Look at Jaiswal’s bat face, he was so keen to attack Root he made an error.
Gill got out to a half-volley on leg-stump, perhaps committing to the shot too early after getting a little stuck.
Shreyas did not quite connect the wrong-un well, there were so many worse balls for him to punish.
KL Rahul got out to a Rehan Ahmed long hop that he tried to deposit into the stands, this was the ball to hit, but he fluffed it.
And Ashwin was run out in a comical fashion when Jadeja did not trust his call.
This meant that India could have batted England out of the game after the first innings. Rahul Dravid talked about it at the press conference, saying they thought they were 70 runs short. There is no universe where scoring over 400 is bad when you get a 190 lead. But against this attack, on that wicket, with so many batters getting set, India should have scored a minimum of 480, and really, 550.
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